Across the Multi-Verse: Turtles Forever 2
by zebralily999
Summary: A month after the events of Turtles Forever, as a new threat comes against the entire multi-verse of turtles, many different dimensions of them will have to unite to defeat a foe stronger than they ever could have imagined, while learning to fight together and handle the blows that the biggest battle of their lives deals them. A sequel to the movie, Turtles Forever
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! I wrote this story to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise on March 30, 2014. It is such a huge landmark and TMNT deserves a big high-three for making it this far with so much success. I saw the best way to congratulate TMNT was to write this story, set as a sequel to the amazing movie Turtles Forever. It encompasses so many famous (or infamous) versions of the Turtles and looks at just how cool their history really is. Turtles Forever!**

**A heads-up: Once multiple iterations of turtles are together, they will be identified with the year their version came around at the end of their names. Example: Michelangelo87 will be Michelangelo from the first cartoon, and Raphael03 will be from the 4Kids 2003 cartoon. **

**Forgive me if some of my writing for different turtle versions are a bit off. I haven't had a lot of experience with some of the versions. **

* * *

Donatello sat alone in the Lair, with only his thoughts to keep him company. It was nearly midnight and everyone else was asleep after a long day of training. Donatello, though, was wide awake. He had tried to sleep, but his mind was buzzing so much that it was practically impossible. He'd come to the Lair to just think, until he got tired.

Donatello leaned back on his swivel chair, absent-mindedly staring at his sad reflection on a television screen as his mind wandered off. He was so confused, he didn't know what to think any more. There were more turtles out there, countless dimensions of Donatellos, Leonardos, Michelangelos, and Raphaels, all so different, but yet the same. How could this be? How could he live fifteen years and meet some of the strangest creatures in the universe, but not himself. The versions of himself that were short and goofy or dark and threatening. He'd lived with this information for a month now, ever since that life-changing adventure in which he'd met Donatello Classic, as he liked to call the short, pudgy one he'd grown so close to.

He missed him. It was like living his whole life until he finally met his long-lost twin, only to be tugged away from them again after only a few hours.

All month, ever since they'd split apart, Donatello couldn't stop thinking about the Classics. Every time Michelangelo had gotten on his nerves, or Raphael had been rude, Donatello had wished he'd had Donatello Classic there with him to talk to. Someone that understood him.

Out of that battle with Shredder, when two teams of turtles finally learned to work as one, they'd finally defeated their one arch-nemesis. But Donatello didn't care about that anymore. He just missed Donatello Classic and the others. He'd give nearly anything to see them again, just to make sure it wasn't all just a dream...

It couldn't be, because Donatello could see the Inter-dimensional Portal Stick, the thing he'd invented with Donatello Classic, on the table a few feet away. And that's when Donatello had an idea...

* * *

_ "Mondo excellent, compadre!" Michelangelo Classic shouted, giving his friend - his brother - and enthusiastic high-three. He turned and began to rush down the street, his short ends of his orange bandana swinging with each step. There were plenty of people out on the sidewalk, since it was the middle of the day. They gasped as the turtle ran past them, but didn't seem all that surprised. It was like they saw him everyday. He was just part of the city. "Cowabunga!"_

_ Michelangelo Classic, about thirty feet away from his friend now, turned and shouted to him,"Coming, Mikey?" He laughed and began to run again, the sunlight shining down on him. He looked so happy. Life was nothing but fun and games to him. _

_ Michelangelo03 looked down at his feet. He felt so jealous of his counterpart self, able to walk the streets so freely. He'd been spending a good fifteen years learning how to conceal himself in the shadows. Walking around in the middle of the day was practically forbidden to him back home. But, Michelangelo very much wanted to catch up with his friend, to be by his side laughing and scarfing pizza. He took a step forward. _

_ All the people on the streets stopped and gasped. They pointed and shouted. "Look at that!" _

_ "What is it?" _

_ "What a freak!" _

_ Michelangelo03 was confused. He faltered in his movement, eyes wide. "What the shell? You people don't freak out when he walks down the street!" He pointed towards where he'd last seen his trans-dimensional counterpart, running happily down the sidewalk. He wasn't there anymore. Michelangelo Classic's body was no longer sillouetted against the bright setting sun. _

_ Michelangelo03 felt alone now. Darkness seemed to fall all around him, the moon taking place of the sun. Panic entered his mind. He ignored everyones' cries of disgust as he began to run, pushing people out of his way. "Mikey! Mikey! Where are you!" _

_ It felt like he ran for hours. Until his lungs burned and his breath was sharp. His long orange bandana end fluttered in the wind, blocking his view sometimes. Michelangelo03 finally stopped, breathing hard. His friend was gone. He turned and began to walk away, head bowed as the ever-present citizens insulted and condescended him. _

_ And that's when Shredder fell in front of him. "You pathetic turtle, prepare to face the Shredder!" _

"AAAAAH!" Michelangelo sat up straight in his bed.

His eyes dashed around the room, picking up every little detail. Shredder wasn't here. Finally, Michelangelo realized it had just been a dream. Just a dream. It was, because Shredder was dead, and Michelangelo Classic was gone forever. He couldn't see his friend again - the Turtle Primes had forbidden them to travel through the multi-verse again after that last disaster had almost ended with Shredder defeating the turtles, for good.

Michelangelo stood up and walked out of his room. He decided to grab some pizza and calm down. No way would he be able to sleep if he was still freaked about Shredder. He still had to discern dreams from reality.

And in which category did Michelangelo Classic belong?

* * *

Donatello stared down at the invention in his hands, contemplating what he was planning to do. Was this right? He balanced the creation, which looked like a gray and green flashlight with lots of attachments. He knew he missed Donatello Classic, but the Turtle Primes had told him and his brothers to not do anymore interdimensional travel. And now that Donatello thought about the Turtle Primes, he realized he missed them, too. Just not nearly as much as the goofy, funny turtle team he'd come to know so well in such a short amount of time.

"_We'll need to build some kind of trans-dimensional portal stick to get there, a gateway into other dimensions, but small enough to fit into most overhead compartments." _Donatello chuckled when he remembered that line from Donatello Classic. At first, he'd doubted his trans-dimensional double could really make something like that, but here was the proof that he could right in his hands. Donatello could see the dents his duplicate had made in it with a wrench. Odd that someone who's idea of inventing was hitting something normal with a hammer until it did something strange could make something so incredible as this.

Donatello narrowed his eyes. "It doesn't have to be the way it is." He followed his first impulse and flipped the machine on. An image came from the trans-dimensional portal stick, playing against the nearest wall like a movie projector. At first the image was static, until Donatello could finally discern what it was.

A vast city, empty and disheartening. It was monochromatic black and white, with a dark black sky and nothing too remarkable. Lightning struck hard against a building, but there were no rainclouds, only a quick clap of thunder. Four barely discernible shadows ran along a rooftop, doing flips and incredible maneuvers as they made their way across. The Turtle Primes. Donatello sort of felt like walking towards the image, into their dimension, until he remembered that even Michelangelo there would greet him by pulling out his weapons or shouting death threats. He immediately pressed the switch and smiled as a much friendlier image spread out on the wall. A colorful, accommodating Lair. Two turtles, donning red and blue masks sat on a couch and watched television. Michelangelo Classic scarfed pizza in the kitchen and Donatello Classic worked on some strange invention in the corner.

"Here I come," Donatello said. But didn't move. He just watched them a little longer.

* * *

Michelangelo03 shut the refrigerator, two pizza boxes piled up in his hands. He was ready for a good midnight snack, thinking about watching some late-night TV until he fell asleep, until he thought he heard something in the main room of the Lair. He put the pizza on the table and snuck into the room quietly, peeking around the corner.

Michelangelo was shocked to see his brother, the logical one, standing in front of the image of the Turtle Classics' Lair, ready to walk into it. The Turtle Primes had warned them inter-dimensional travel was too dangerous! And here was Donatello, about to do just that, as the most impulsive turtle had been holding himself back for a month!

"No way you're going without me!" Michelangelo hissed quietly. He began to stealthily inch towards Donatello, careful to not be seen or heard. When he came to the right angle, he could see Michelangelo Classic in the image, eating pizza, as usual. Michelangelo03's heart began to beat rapidly. If he could sneak in after Donatello, he would get to see his friend again. Every bit of common sense left his mind in his thrill to see Michelangelo Classic.

* * *

Donatello Classic groaned, aggravated, and dropped his wrench to the table. Leonardo, sitting on the couch watching television with Raphael, turned and said through a mouth full of popcorn,"What's wrong, Donatello?"

Donatello waved his brother's question off. "Nothing. I'm fine." He lifted up his uncooperative invention up and examined it. It looked pretty much like an ordinary flashlight, but with a great deal more buttons. "How did we build this the first time?" he whispered, scratching his head in confusion. He knew he was missing something, but what?

"By hitting it with a wrench a lot," Michelangelo interjected. He approached his brother and leaned against the table, stuffing a slice of pizza into his mouth. "What's the problemo, bro?"

The purple-masked turtle sighed and rested his head in his hands. His mind was empty. For nearly three weeks, against his better judgment, he'd been trying and failing to reconstruct the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick from only his memory. It was nearly impossible, but he wasn't giving up, he was determined to see his new friend, the alternate-dimension Donatello, once again. Donatello Classic just couldn't make this because he and the other Donatello had worked as a team to build it the first time, each of them bringing their own way of inventing to the table. Donatello Classic couldn't think like his dimensional duplicate. "It's impossible!"

"Nothing's impossible except impossibility," Leonardo said, trying to cheer up his brother.

"Another classic line, Leonardo," Raphael teased, scraping up the last bit of popcorn. Suddenly the red-masked turtle turned to the wall, winking, and said sarcastically,"Leonardo comes up with these lines on the fly. Amazing, right?"

Michelangelo crossed his arms, confused, and leaned down towards Donatello, whispering,"Dude, who does Raphael keep talking to? Should we be worried for him?" Donatello nodded, hardly paying Michelangelo any attention. Raphael had been saying things to no one in particular for years - the other turtles had finally concluded, somewhat desperately - that Raphael had imaginary friends. Donatello began to tweak on the invention again, until a piece fell apart in his hands and the end of the flashlight started to smoke.

"I can't do it," Donatello said, letting the failed device fall to the table with a loud thud. "We'll never be able to visit the other turtles again." He rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael looked down at the floor sadly. They missed the other turtles, too, who they had grown to become great friends and teammates with. They missed them more every day, but if Donatello couldn't construct the Trans-dimensional portal stick again, the only way to see the other turtles would be to use the Portal in the Technodrome. They was a unnecessary risk, as they would surely run into Shredder and his henchmen or Krang.

* * *

"Mikey, here I come!" Michelangelo03 cheered quietly, tip-toeing closer and closer to Donatello and the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick. He could almost taste success, feel the rush of accomplishment and happiness as he imagined greeting Michelangelo Classic with a big high-three.

Donatello03 closed his eyes, letting the memories rush to him. Never before had he had a friend like Donatello Classic, someone so much like him. It was indescribable, and nothing the Turtle Primes could say or do would keep him away from his new friend. He looked behind him to see if anyone was following (Michelangelo jumped behind a chair at just the right time to not be seen). Donatello took a step forward, his foot plunging into the portal. It felt odd, sending a strange tingling feeling up his spine. He walked all the way in.

"Bingo!" Michelangelo03 cheered. He rushed forward and plunged into the portal as well, just before it closed.


	2. Chapter 2: Mystery Shredder

**Bear with me on this chapter, I know it's extremely long. This story is going to have a few large chapters because it will get very complicated and have lots of characters. **

**Just a reminder: the turtles of multiple iterations will be identified by the year their version came about at the end of their name. Example: 2012 Leonardo would be Leonardo12 and 1990 Michelangelo (from the movie) would be Michelangelo90. **

* * *

Leonardo87 felt awkward and as he stood behind his brother Donatello, trying to comfort him as he patted him on the back. Donatello had been trying for weeks to rebuild the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick for weeks and after many failed attempts, was nearly to the end of his rope. Leonardo felt sorry for him. Never before had Donatello not known how to build something.

Raphael87 had never seen his brainiac brother so sad, yet so determined. Donatello seemed to have a fire inside him, pushing him to build better and faster, just to see his dimensional duplicate again. All the turtles had felt such a connection, like they belonged, to the other turtle dimensions. But it seemed as if the dimensions were meant to stay separate, because it was pretty much impossible to connect them again.

"I can't do it," Donatello said, exasperated. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. The broken portal stick lay on the table, smoldering. Michelangelo offered him a pizza, which he refused.

Suddenly, there was a huge rushing noise. Papers flew forward into a huge vortex opening up in the middle of the Lair. The turtles braced themselves, gravity pulling them towards the hole with extreme force. It was like a giant swirling portal, a mix of purple and green colors. "We're being invaded by aliens!" Michelangelo screamed, remembering an event such as this happening in the movie he had watched yesterday.

"Not even close, Michelangelo," said a voice. _A familiar voice. _The turtles perked up, shocked.

"Donnie?" yelled Donatello87, the vortex seeming to suck up the sound. "Is that you? The other Donatello?"

A form walked out of the portal, and strode towards the turtles hunched against the table. It was a tall turtle, wearing a purple mask over pupil-less eyes. It _was _Donatello! The turtle pressed a button on the machine in his hands and the portal closed. Nobody noticed the thing, just a blur of orange and green, that jumped out at the last second and hid behind a couch.

Donatello87 rushed up to his new best friend and gave him an enthusiastic hug, while the rest of the turtles came over. They jumped high in the air, barely managing the give their tall dimensional brother a high-three. "Long time, no see! Care for a slice of pizza?" Michelangelo87. "I started saving a slice for you a month ago, just in case you came back, but I think it's gone bad now."

Donatello03 smiled wide, chuckling. He could see the machine sitting on the table, something that looked pretty similar to the real Trans-dimensional portal stick, and he knew that Donatello87 had missed him, too.

* * *

Shredder12 walked down the aisles of TCRI like he owned the place, which wasn't that far off. Robots, all with the same realistic human look, stood at the ends of their cubicles. They were the Kraang, a race of pink, brain-like alien creatures that had unlimited technology. They came from another dimension, and had been on the Earth for many years, Shredder had deduced from the few times he'd spoken to them. Shredder didn't think much about the Kraang or how odd they were, he merely saw them as a way to unleash his revenge upon the turtles and Splinter. After all, that was all he thought about.

A Kraang walked beside him, leading him obediently to the top floor, and Karai followed behind quietly, looking at all the still robots with mixed awe and disgust.

"Did the Kraang follow my orders?" Shredder said, his voice echoing behind his metal mask. He brandished his fists, covered in sharp and threatening metal spikes. The Kraang, nameless and just the same as all the others in their identical human suits, replied. "The answer is yes. Kraang have done what is known as 'research'. The Kraang who are working for this place revealed to Kraang ways of which you described. What is known as success will be yours. Defeat will come to those known as the turtles."

"Good," Shredder said. He looked happier than he had in years. Karai could tell, even behind his mask; she knew her father well after fifteen years training by his side. Splinter, the rat who took everything away from her, would be dead. She shared her father's happiness, but a small part of her thought of Leonardo. How nice he had been to her when they first met and gotten to know each other. She hated him, but found it fun to be around him at the same time, even if she was always attempting to kill him.

The group walked into the top floor of TCRI, so high up it felt like they were running out of air to breath. Shredder made sure to keep his blades visible, and Karai kept her sword brandished, shiny and threatening. They did not trust the Kraang, they only had a mutual partnership to accomplish their unified goal: defeating the turtles.

There were a group of Kraang, in their regular robot appearances, surrounding a big computer. They talked simultaneously and the room was filled with the sound of their odd speech and the sounds of their robot suits moving. The computer they were at looked misshapen and beaten up, like a conglumeration of several machines. It probably was, since it had just been rebuilt after the humongous battle with the turtles, which had destroyed TCRI.

"Shredder," of the Kraang said, addressing the metal-covered menace. He walked, robotically, over to the man, and began relaying information. "Those who are known as the turtles are a larger threat than previously expected by Kraang. Immediate action is necessary."

"What?" Shredder said. The Kraang didn't immediately respond. Karai pushed her way forward and brandished her sword, taking after her father. She knew that these aliens were capable of so much more technology-wise than humans; they could have easily uncovered something important. And she needed to know, _now._

"Spill the information, robot creep," she demanded.

"There are multiple dimensions of what are known as the turtles," the Kraang robot said very quickly. It didn't speak again. The brain-like form in the chest cavity opened its green eyes, seeing the malice in Shredder's. The Kraang's scary green eyes moved about the room, sensing the tension that had just arose.

Not a word was spoken. Shredder merely slid his hand through the air and the robot fell to pieces on the floor. "Kraang!" he shouted, anger inflicting his words, and all the robots turned to look at him. "Get a portal ready. I've got some turtles to take care of!" The robots rushed in all directions, some running into each other.

Shredder turned and walked down towards the end of the room, straight through the hectic mass of Kraang bots. Karai following like a puppy on a leash. Shredder's eyes narrowed. He felt the burn on his face, caused him by Hamato Yoshi. "When I get through with _ALL_ of the turtles, I'll finally have my revenge."

Karai sighed. Shredder, again, didn't see it odd that there were multiple dimensions of turtles, in his narrow-minded ways. He only saw more turtles to kill, more Splinters to defeat, a chance to take his revenge as many times as he wanted. If he couldn't defeat the turtles of his dimension, he could get his revenge on another's. Nothing would stop him. Shredder believed that killing the turtles and Splinter would bring him peace in life, heal the wound in his heart, and possibly his mind, caused by Tang Shen's intimely death.

_What would Shredder do after his enemies were defeated? _Karai wondered. She stared at her distorted reflection in his sharp metal contraptions. _Maybe take up making knives_.

* * *

Donatello03 sat at the table with all of the Classics and their Splinter, talking about the things that had happened to him in the past month. The events he discussed felt mediocre in comparison to the Turtle Classics' retelling of their battle with Shredder and his Giggle Ray, and all their battles since. The turtle classics' stories sounded like the plots of cartoons, but at least they were better than Donatello's retelling of how he actually knocked down Leonardo in ninja practice this week.

"Sorry, I might be boring you guys with my stories," Donatello03 said, interrupting Michelangelo, who had been getting on a tangent. "My Shredder is defeated, after all. My brothers and I don't do much crime-fighting anymore." He looked around at the Lair, feeling an overwhelming feeling that he belonged here. "It seems like you guys are having the time of your lives with it. Now that New York crime is under control in our dimension, I'm not sure what my brothers and I are going to do now."

Donatello87 shook his head. "You're not boring." He chowed down on his pizza, seeming happy just that his inter-dimensional brother was there. "And I don't know what I'll do after my ninja crime-fighting days are over, either. Maybe I'll pursue the Nobel Prize." The turtles broke into a rowdy conversation once again.

Splinter observed this new Donatello, not knowing exactly what to think of him. He'd never imagined the turtles being so tall as he was. "My sons, they have missed you very much, er, Donatello. Why did you take such a long time to visit us?"

Donatello03 looked down at his food, thinking over his words. "The Turtle Primes forbad us to do any more travel between dimensions. It's too dangerous. But I came here anyways, I missed you guys." The turtle classics realized this was exactly how they had felt about the 2003 turtles, forbidden to visit them but willing to do so anyways.

"The Turtle Primes do have a point," Donatello03 added after a moment. "Our dimension-hopping brought a lot of trouble last month. It was a miracle we survived."

"The Turtle Primes," Raphael87 scoffed, lifting his chin up in self-pride. "Those bossy monochrome morons think they can tell us what to do just 'cuz they're the source of all turtle life." It was true. The Turtle Primes were the first turtles, and the rest of the multi-verse spread off of the source dimension like branches on a tree. It explained how all the dimensions could be so similar, yet so different, and how they even existed.

Suddenly, something moved out of the shadows and jumped forward, jut a blur of green and orange. "I missed you guys, too!" The turtles made the figure out as Michelangelo03, standing tall and proud in front of them all. They sat in shock as the turtle said,"Think I'd let Donnie here visit you without me coming along?"

"Mikey!" Michelangelo87 sat up in his chair, a large smile spread across his face. Michelangelo03 came over and Splinter gave him his chair, treating him no different than he treated _his _turtles. Michelangelo87 handed his friend a huge slice of pizza.

Leonardo87 picked up Donatello03's Trans-dimensional Portal Stick and examined it closely. "This is truly an amazing invention, Donatello - both of you." He looked at his reflection in it, imagining Leonardo03's next to it. He sighed. Too bad all of the other turtle team hadn't come to visit. He'd have loved to see the other Leonardo again.

* * *

Back in the 2003 dimension, Leonardo03 sat alone in the Lair at the table, stirring his tea. It was so early that even Splinter was still asleep, along with the other turtles. The Lair, as big as it was, felt empty. He looked at the area over to his left that Hun the turtle had destroyed when he'd infiltrated the Lair. Leonardo could almost see all the Turtle Classics hoping around the room in their rush to defeat the man.

He missed Leonardo Classic. And he had an odd feeling that Leonardo Classic missed him, too.

* * *

Raphael87 took the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick out of Leonardo's hands and examined it, too. "Hey Donatellos, wanna visit some other dimensions? There are so many out there."

Both of the purple-masked turtles hesitated. They shared a glance at each other, and could tell they were both thinking the same thing. Maybe it was the thrill of being back together, or the fact that they'd already broken their promise to the Primes by dimension-travelling, but slowly two reckless smiles slid across their faces. "Yeah, why not?" they said simulaneously.

"Cowabunga, dude!" Michelangelo87 shouted, plucking up the Portal Stick. He pressed a random button and it began to whirr like an engine, flicker with yellow light. A bolt of color shot out and hit the wall, spreading out to form an image. The six turtles and Splinter, who looked a little apprehensive, stared at it in awe.

"Woaaah..."

Sprawling New York City, with equal splashes of darkness and bright colors from neon lights. It rained hard, pitter-pattering the only noise in the whole city. Four small forms ran by in the distance, performing amazing tricks as they maneuvered themselves about on the rain-slick rooftops. The Turtles. What dimension of the multi-verse was this?

The turtles all walked forward, pushing away all their second thoughts. Splinter stayed behind, waving, hiding his nervousness. He'd waved goodbye to his sons as they went on so many strange, dangerous missions that he was now used to it. Why should this time be any different?

* * *

**-The 2007 movie universe-**

Four teens ran along the rooftops, their breath sharp and their footfalls becoming heavier and heavier with each step. The one in the front, named Leonardo, tried hard to endure the tiredness that had fallen over him, but once he came to the end of the roof, he realized he was too exhausted to leap to the next and ended up falling in a heap against an arched glass window.

Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo came up and sat down next to him. They were tired, too, unable to discern the sweat on their arms from the rain pouring down on them. Donatello picked up the ends of his mask, uselessly squeezing the water out of them. "How long was that training exercise, Leo?" he asked. He was usually the most shy and silent turtle of the brotherhood and the others were surprised to hear him talk. Maybe working in IT tech support for a couple years, a job he had recently quit, had finally made him come out of his shell and speak more.

Leonardo smiled, proud that he'd lasted full-on training for such a long time. "At least seven hours, Donnie." Usually their training only lasted four to six hours, but since Leonardo had returned from Brazil, the turtles had realized their crime-fighting days were not near over and began to train more rigorously than they had in two years. They were nineteen-years-old and Leonardo couldn't see the day when they'd finally take off their masks. Soon they'd just have to be the Early Twenties Mutant Ninja Turtles. Not really as good a ring to that title.

Michelangelo slid farther and farther down the glass window, breathing hard. His eyes were closed and the turtles all knew he was asleep. They were quiet, listening to him talk in his slumber, something he often did that Leonardo had missed during his days in Brazil. "...Dude...Dude...Dude..." There was a long pause. "...Dude..."

Raphael stood up and stretched. "Let's get back to the Lair." He began to walk to the edge of the rooftop, Leonardo standing up and following after. Donatello looked down at Michelangelo, who was able to sleep through anything. He hesitated. "Uh, guys, can we wait until Mikey wakes up? I don't want to carry him back to the Lair like you made me last time."

Raphael groaned impatiently, stopping in his tracks. He didn't say anything, and let the stress flow out of him, breathing softly and closing his eyes. He'd realized when Leonardo had returned that anger wasn't a good alley to go down in his life and he'd been working hard for the past weeks to get it under control. He didn't want to see his brothers flinch at his every move anymore, preparing to get out of his way if he went off.

Donatello knelt beside Michelangelo, trying to shake him awake. Raphael gathered himself and joined his purple-masked brother. "Yo, Mikey, wake up."

"...Dude..." It didn't seem to be working, Michelangelo was still fast asleep.

Leonardo stood at the edge of the rooftop, smiling. Two years being away from his family had made him forget just why he loved them. Now he could never see himself doing anything but leading them, through everything from training exercises to their greatest fights. He'd never leave them to fight their own battles without help.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, screaming with power. Leonardo felt air slam into him, trying to knock him down, and his mask ends fluttered furiously. Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael huddled against the arched window, yelling in confusion. Leonardo struggled to stand his ground, feeling his feet slide out from under him slowly on the slick rooftop. "What's going on?" he shouted into the wind and rain hurling towards his face.

Something new appeared on the next building over, a small black vortex-like object swirling in mid-air. It reminded Leonardo of the portal the thirteen monsters had been thrown into after their fight with the turtles. _They are coming back, _Leonardo thought, pulling out his swords. He hunched forward to resist the wind, ready to fight if he had to. Memories from the fight with the monsters flicked in and out of his mind.

He couldn't believe what he saw step out of the portal instead. Even through the hurtling wind, Leonardo could hear his brothers' gasps. The thing across them on the other rooftop stepped out of the portal, five other similar forms following it, spreading out. They stared at Leonardo and Leonardo stared back. "Turtles?" he asked, puzzled.

Sure enough, the things across him were definitely humanoid turtles. An orange-masked, a purple-masked, a red-masked, and a blue-masked that were short and pudgy, and two other taller ones. Leonardo could barely think, his mind was rushed, but he could hear his brothers get up and and walk over to his side. The portal closed and the wind stopped immediately. The rain slowed down to a light drizzle.

"They look just like us..." Michelangelo said, ogling. He was now completely awake, thanks to the shocking wind. The turtle began to walk down the edge of the rooftop, staring at them all. The short turtle across the roof with an orange mask began to walk along the rooftop as well, mimicking Michelangelo's movements. "Clones!"

"No, Mikey," Donatello said, pulling Michelangelo away from the edge of the rainslick roof. "They are definitely mutant turtles, and they have our mask colors. But they look very different from us, too. Different height, different shades of green..."

"What do you want from us?" Leonardo yelled.

Suddenly, one of the turtles across the roof backed up, ran forward, and jumped all the way over to them. He landed on the roof gracefully, but all the others on the roof started and leapt backwards. "Stay away from us, clones!" Michelangelo warned, reaching for his nunchucks.

The mystery turtle stood up and brushed himself off. He was tall, almost as tall as the 2007 Turtles, but with a robust square face. He wore a purple mask and the eyes underneath it were completely white. Leonardo07 walked up to him,"What do you want?" He kept his sword out, showing distrust for the new turtles.

Donatello03 smiled a little, waving for the rest of the new turtles to jump over. Donatello07 gripped his bo staff hard, knowing that he and his brothers were outnumbered by these new imposters.

Once all the new turtles were on the same rooftop, Michelangelo87, carrying the Inter-dimensional portal stick, walked up to the 2007 turtles. "We come in peace, earthlings," he said, just before Donatello87 pushed him out of the way. The 2007 turtles narrowed their eyes suspiciously and the 1987 and 2003 turtles began to wonder if doing more dimension-hopping was truly a poor idea. These new guys didn't look too friendly.

"Sorry about that," Donatello87 said,"That's just Michelangelo being Michelangelo." He turned and looked at his brothers behind him and they nodded for him to continue. Donatello87 nodded, turned to the 2007 turtles and said,"I understand we've got some explaining to do..."

* * *

Shredder stomped up the white gleaming stairs, looking at his reflection staring right back at him. He was determined and ready to get this over with. Within hours, he would finally have his revenge on the Turtles and Splinter. As many times as he wanted.

He stepped onto a large white circle, surrounded by three strange attachments on the side, their design a little like guns, The giant machine's design was a distracting white and pink, humming as it slowly turned on. Shredder could hear the Kraang behind him, clicking buttons and giving commands. After what Shredder had done to multiple Kraang when they had refused to let him use the portal, the aliens were following his every order once again.

The monitor, large and ominous, displayed the dimension that Shredder was about to travel into. The city was dark, much darker than the New York of this dimension. Close-ups and each of the turtles, out in plain sight on a rooftop. They were lithe and tall, all very similar to each other. They looked radically different from the 2012 turtles, the ones this Shredder was used to.

Karai, silently and obediantly, followed her father up the steps and began to take her position next to him in the middle of the portal device. However, Shredder held out his hand, commanding her to go back. "This endeavour is for me and me alone, Karai. You are to stay back and make sure the Kraang follow my orders. Do not let them close the portal on me."

Karai looked a little disappointed. She mumbled something under her breath and walked away, pushing robots down that got in her path. The crowd of Kraang quickly separated for her, and she walked straight down the open path to the computers. She turned to look at her father, then to a Kraang. "Do it."

"Your mother will be avenged by the time I return, Karai," Shredder said as the vortex opened behind him. The words were soft, strange for the Shredder, but they cut in to Karai like a knife. She looked away. "Send him away already," she hissed at the Kraang. She walked away, trying to regain control over herself as emotions flowed in. Her breath slowed, her eyes closed. She hadn't cried at all in ten years and she wasn't going to do so now.

It felt good, what Shredder said, after she thought about it. She looked behind, as her father climbed into the unknown, and smiled. "Make Splinter pay. If you can't find the turtles here, you can find them somewhere else. I just hope every dimension of them feels the pain you deal one."

* * *

The 2007 Turtles looked around at each other, sharing quick glances. These new turtles had just finished their story. It had been told quick and enthusiastically, with many interruptions, but the 2007 turtles had gotten the gist of it.

Raphael07 stepped forward, looking suspiciously at the newcomers. "So you want us to believe that there are countless dimensions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? You're jokin', right?"

The 2003 and 1987 turtles looked at each other, smiling like they were sharing an inside-joke. Donatello looked at the lithe, tall Raphael and said,"What more proof do you need?" He gestured around at all the turtles behind him.

Raphael looked at a loss for words. Leonardo07 could tell that his brother believed the story he'd been told. After all, there wasn't a more logical way to explain the sudden appearance of six more turtles. But Raphael seemed to be in denial. He was trying to push this sudden radical thing out of his mind. It reminded him, this portal-travelling, too much of the thirteen monsters they had only defeated weeks ago. That fight had nearly lost Leonardo.

Donatello07 stepped forward, as did the two other turtles that shared his name. He looked at them both, examining what was different and the same about them, and how they were similar to himself. Could they really be his dimensional duplicates?

"This Trans-dimensional Portal Stick," Donatello07 said, pointing to the device cradled in Michelangelo87's hands. "It travels through dimensions with the push of a button? How could you create a device that complex? It's impossible. My studies of dimensions and galaxies throughout the years have given me nothing near the knowledge needed to produce _that_." He stared at the device, analyzing it.

Donatello87 and 2003 shared a knowing glance. "Science isn't all about facts, you know."

Donatello07 began to object, but suddenly the wind picked up again. It knocked him down, but his brother Michelangelo quickly helped him to his feet. "Not again!" Leonardo complained, hunching against the arched glass window, crowded by the nine others around him.

"What's going on?" Michelangelo87 shouted, squinting into the hurtling wind. He clutched the Inter-dimensional Portal Stick with all his might.

"This exact occurrence happened when you six appeared!" Donatello07 shouted at the top of his lungs. "The vortex you opened acts as a black hole. That means there's more people coming, from other dimensions!"

"Okay, bozos," Raphael07 said, eyeing his goofy 1987 counterpart,"Exactly how many other turtles did you invite to this get-together?"

"Nobody!" Leonardo87 shouted in response. He looked at the new swirling vortex on the roof over, terrified of what could come out of it. "We've got to do something!"

"You'd think we already would have done something if we could," Michelangelo07 said, struggling to stand up. He rolled his eyes at Leonardo87.

"Something's coming out!" Michelangelo07 yelled, pointing at the vortex.

* * *

**Throughout this story I am going to be sharing some of my experiences and observations about TMNT and its history on the bottom with each chapter. Here is my first one: **

**I am a huge fan of the 2007 TMNT movie, though that wasn't always the case. The first time I saw it I nearly despised it because I felt that the 13 monsters storyline was a little strange, even for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that it needed Shredder. However, I see now the thing this movie was trying to set up: the Ninja Turtles don't need to the Shredder to be great. They were trying to be creative, because having Shredder be in everything TMNT was like having the Joker be the only villain Batman ever faces. The TMNT have so much more potential, but because the 2007 movie did not do so well, it is doubtful there will be a movie with any villain but Shredder for quite a while. I'm not saying Shredder isn't cool (he's actually one of my favorite villains ever) but the TMNT have so many different bad guys. **

**Sorry, that one was a little lame. Each of the tidbits at the bottom will sort of relate to the chapter above (such as my experience with one of the iterations of TMNT introduced in that chapter).**

**And sorry this chapter was so dang long! I hope it was good enough that you could plow through it. :D**


	3. Chapter 3: Gone Too Far

**I'm so sorry this chapter is so long. I'll try to shorten them from now on. This one is just the turning point in the story and needed a lot of detail. **  
**Cowabunga, dude!**

* * *

The turtles, 2003, 1987, and 2007 versions united, gasped as something stepped out of the portal, a dark form hard to make out from far away. They gripped their weapons harder, preparing to fight, as they struggled to make out the form on the next roof as the wind rushed towards them.

A man walked out, clothed in dark colors and shimmering silver armor. Nearly every inch of his body was covered in dangerous sharp objects. He was tall and muscled, his fists clenched as he walked around the roof, examining his new surroundings.

"What is that?" Leonardo07 asked, squinting. He and his brothers had defeated their Shredder years ago. This couldn't be him. It couldn't. Yet it looked very similar to the Shredder he remembered.

"The Shredder! Old frying pan-face!" Raphael87 exclaimed, turning to his counterparts, wide-eyed. "Not ours, though!" He looked at Michelangelo07. "Is he yours?"

"Our Shredder died! Years ago!" Michelangelo07 explained. "No way he is alive." He looked up with a scarred expression, watching the villain's every move.

"All right," Leonardo87 said,"We have no idea what dimension this Shredder is from, but he's going down! No one messes with the turtles!" He slid his katanas out of his holster slowly, determination and anger etched into his face. His twin swords gleamed in the darkness.

The portal closed and the wind dropped drastically in a matter of seconds, allowing the turtles to regain their footing and prepare for battle. Shredder turned his menacing face, catching the large collection of turtles with his good eye. At first he was confused as to why there were so many, all looking so different, but pushed it out of his mind. Metal spikes, nearly two-feet long, slid out of the medal cuffs around his wrists. He roared and the silence that had enveloped around them shattered like glass.

"Turtle Power!" The 1987 turtles yelled. The held their weapons out in front of them and ran forward, not showing any sign of fear. They may be goofy most of the time, but they were surely some of the bravest turtles. If they had to fight, they always would.

As the 1987 turtles rushed forward, they each leapt into the air, practically flying as they travelled to the next roof to face their enemy. Michelangelo's nunchucks spun at high speed, Leonardo's double katanas glinted brightly, Raphael's sais were a blur, and Donatello's bo staff circled above his head at incredible speeds. They landed on the roof, angrily eyeing Shredder, sizing him up.

The 2007 and 2003 turtles looked at each other, knowing what they had to do. They couldn't leave the little guys to fight alone. Plus, they had to stop this Shredder, who ever he was, because they both knew what someone so evil could do to the multi-verse. They also had to find out where this Shredder came from, how he had gotten here. Donatello03 slid his bo staff out of his holder, nodding to the others to go.

* * *

Raphael03 walked out of his room, yawning and stretching. He plodded into the lair slowly, and was surprised to see only Leonardo in the room. The blue-masked turtle was alone. Usually Donatello and Michelangelo were awake long before Raphael. More often than not it was Michelangelo shouting or one of Donatello's inventions exploding that woke Raphael up. Today, there had been nothing.

"Hey, um, Leo? Where's Mike and Don?" Raphael said.

"I don't know," Leonardo said. "...I just hope they aren't in any trouble."

* * *

The 2007 and 2003 turtles ran at top speed, soaring from one roof to another. They landed next to the Turtles Classics. Raphael07 wasted no time - he rushed towards the Shredder, maneuvering away from his metal grasp, and tried to plunge his sai deep into the villain's skin, only to be pushed away by a heavy metal hand.

Raphael07 flew nearly ten feet before landing hard and tumbling the length of the rooftop, stopping inches from the edge. He groaned, pain overtaking him as white blurred his vision, and didnt' get up. Raphael87 stopped and took a breath, looking like he felt some pain as well. He was dizzy for a moment, but he shoved the feeling away.

"Raphael!" Leonardo07 shouted, eyes wide. His closest brother, the one he'd fought beside for years, was down. The blue-masked turtle felt anger flutter up inside him, consuming all rational thought. He would make the Shredder_ pay. _He ran towards the Shredder with poor timing and sloppy movement, while Michelangelo87 and Donatello07 were doing a good job keeping the man busy. Leonardo07 leapt into the air, sliding his blades past each other. Unsurprisingly, the blades only hit Shredder's metal mask and made a dent. Before the blue-masked turtle even fell back to the ground, Shredder grabbed him by his throat, holding him up in the air.

Leonardo07 gasped for breath, his swords falling to the ground beneath him. Yet he didn't look down; he glared at the Shredder without blinking. If he should die, he should die fighting. Leonardo07 wrapped his fingers around Shredder's huge fist, trying to pry himself free. His eyes dashed to Raphael07, who was still down for the count, and then to Shredder's face. It was the single-most scary thing he'd ever experienced, as he felt all air leave him, while Shredder said,"Prepare to die, freak." The grip around Leonardo's neck only tightened. Leonardo saw spots spring up in his vision.

"NO!" screamed the rest of the turtles at once. They nearly flew towards the Shredder, hitting him with blurs of nunchaku, staffs, sais, and swords. The Shredder stumbled back in complete shock, and Leonardo took his chance to pry the thick fingers off his throat. He fell the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. He didn't take his eyes off Raphael07 for a moment, looking for movement in his brother.

"Man, not even Utrom Shredder put up this good a fight!" Michelangelo03 exclaimed, flipping towards Shredder to make another hit. His nunchucks slammed into Shredder's thigh and the orange-masked turtles flipped backwards to avoid the responding punch.

Shredder seemed to be getting the idea that he was no match for this high amount of turtles as they pushed him closer and closer to the edge, denting his armor as much as they could. It was one against eight angry turtles. "Why are you here?" Donatello03 screamed, bringing his staff around to thwap against the man's side as Michelangelo leapt over him and went for the Shredder's face.

"Why else?" Shredder said, his voice like a clap of thunder,"To kill turtles." He grabbed Donatello03's staff and snapped in it half in his fist like it was nothing more than a twig. The purple-masked turtle stumbled back before Shredder had the opportunity to grab him. Two more turtles, just a blur, ran up and distracted him before he could attack the unarmed Donatello03.

"We have to get him out of this dimension!" Donatello07 commanded all the others. "He's not meant for this place. He belongs to another dimension of turtles and we can't deal with him." The rest of the turtles nodded, rushing up to fight even more as Donatello07 ran to Leonardo07 to help him up. He offered the wheezing turtle his hand to help him to his feet.

"Raph! We have to help Raph!" Leonardo07 yelled, pulling his arm away from the purple-masked turtle trying to help him up. He bent down on his knees on the ground, his other hand in a death grip around his katana hilt. The sword was in his hand, but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything but panic.

Donatello07 looked over to Raphael07, still on the ground. "We can later. For now, he should stay out of Shredder's attention. I don't know how much more injury Raphael can stand, or if..."

"Don't say it," Leonardo07 commanded, standing up on his own, wincing. "Raphael's not dead." He felt his arm, brushing away a stream of blood from a small gash, and rushed back into the fight.

"Okay bros!" Michelangelo87 said, backing out of the chaos. He plucked out the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick from where he usually stored his nunchucks. "Let's send old bucket-head back to wherever he came from!"

"How are we going to tell what place is his dimension?" Leonardo87 asked, ducking Shredder's swinging arm. He lashed out with his sword and Shredder recoiled as the blade made contact with his leg, shouting out in pain. Leonardo87's sword returned to its hilt tipped with red blood, a very rare occurance. He dashed across the roof to help Michelangelo87 with the Trans-Dimensional Portal Stick.

Donatello87 stepped back from the fight, pondering what to do. Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea, and could almost feel a lightbulb blinking on above his head. "We'll use the particle emissions! Remember how we tracked Utrom Shredder's movement through the dimensions to the Turtle Primes with the particle emissions his portal left? The Trans-dimensional Portal Stick is already programmed to track them!"

"Rocket idea!" Raphael87 cheered. He turned and looked at no one in particular, just the endless city lights. "Now if I only knew what particle emmissions were, exactly."

"What is the Utrom Shredder?" the metal-covered menace roared. "Tell me now!" He grabbed Donatello03 and slammed him down on the roof with extreme force, causing Donatello03 to scream in agony. Nearby, Donatello87 dropped to his knees, suddenly in pain. Leonardo87 ran forward, ready to beat Shredder away from Donatello03. Shredder suddenly lashed out with his arms and caught Leonardo87, sending the turtle soaring backwards. Leonardo crashed into a pole holding up a billboard and fell to the floor. "What are the Turtles Primes?" the menace screamed again, kicking Michelangelo07 away with force. Donatello03 crawled away while the menace was distracted. "What are the Turtle Primes?" Shredder repeated, his voice gravelly and angry.

"Oh no!" Michelangelo07 called, backing up as Shredder grabbed his first pair of nunchucks. "This Shredder is competent! He's heard everything we've said!"

"Kraang!" Shredder screamed. There was a buzzing near his ear, like someone was speaking through an earpiece. _Great, he's got contact to his dimension_, Donatello07 nearly said aloud._ Can this day get any better?_

"Krang? Did you say Krang?" Raphael87 gasped. "I _know_ him!" The Shredder made to punch him, but Raphael hooked his sai around the man's arm and heaved him to the ground over his back. Shredder didn't even seem hurt, pushing Raphael off of him and standing up. Leonardo87 came flying towards him but he kicked him to the ground without even looking at him.

Donatello87 came out of no where and kicked Shredder in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards. Michelangelo87 ran closer, fiddling with the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick. "How do you work this thing?" He pressed a random button and a bolt of light shot out of it, forming an image on the floor. Shredder stepped into it and sunk through it, screaming.

The turtles ran up and looked at the image. "Man, that's definitely not that Shredder's dimension," Michelangelo07 said nervously, scratching his head.

"No," Donatello03 said, his white eyes wide with fear. "That ours."

Leonardo07 limped up to the rest of the group. "Okay, you guys have to go take him down. I've got to stay behind and help Raphael." He looked sharply at Donatello07. "He's not dead," Leonardo07 seethed, before he ran off to the edge of the roof.

Donatello07 and Michelangelo07 watched their brothers from a distance, as Leonardo vainly tried to awake Raphael. They took a breath, their eyes narrowing as they pushed emotion away. They knew what they had to do. "Let's get the Shredder."

* * *

Shredder shouted as he fell from the portal, tumbling from it onto a new roof. He stepped back, gathering his new surroundings. He could tell it was night but this New York was no where near as dark as the last one had been. The buildings were all square and colorful, stretching on for miles and miles. It was a bit disorienting.

"Kraang," he said. He could hear the earpiece turn on with a burst of static. It had been damaged in the fight but he could still hear talking through it. "Where am I?" He began to walk to the edge of the roof, ignoring the pain a turtle's katana had dealt him. Blood stained his clothes, but there was no major injury that would prevent him from fighting, at least in his opinion.

He nodded and the Kraang bot on the other end relayed information on this new dimension. As the robot described how the turtles of this dimension looked, Shredder was reminded of the two tall, robust turtles that had been in the group who'd fought him. How could that be?

Shredder knew that the Kraang were back in his home dimension, surrounding the computer monitors as they examined this dimension. He followed their confusing orders to get the the Lair here, where the 2003 turtles resided. _If only they knew so much about the turtles of their own dimension,_ Shredder thought angrily. _We would've found them out ages ago_.

Suddenly, he had an idea. "Kraang, give me all the information you have on the Turtle Primes, _now_."

* * *

Michelangelo07 was the first to come into the new dimension, rubbing his head as his eyes got used to all of the sudden, bright colors. He was used to darkness with the occasional splash of color from a neon sign but this endless colorful city was completely different than his New York. It felt like another city entirely, an imposter.

Raphael87 came in next, tumbling into Michelangelo07, who was standing too close to the portal. The rest of the turtles came rushing in, dodging the others as they spread out across the rooftop.

"No time to waste!" Michelangelo03 shouted, waving for everyone to follow him. "There's no telling how fast that Shredder could find our Lair! We didn't come after him fast enough, he got a head start!"

"He's got contact to his dimension," Donatello03 said, leaping to the next building. "I noticed him talking through an earpiece. He said 'Kraang'. Do you think...?"

"Why would Krang be with_ that _Shredder trying to destroy us?" Leonardo87 said,"He was with us when we fought Utrom Shredder. He should know not to mess with the multi-verse; all life depends on the survival of the Turtle Primes. That Shredder is looking to kill as many dimensions of turtles he can, I can tell."

"It's dangerous for all turtles if the Shredder from another dimension we don't know of has found out about the multi-verse. There's a simple way to destroy us all, just cut off the Turtle Primes!" Donatello87 said. "We can't let that Shredder get to them."

"Man," Raphael87 said,"I just thought of something. The Turtle Primes fight crime all the time, risking their lives practically every night. If their death means all of ours as well, maybe we should go to their dimension and cover them in bubble wrap!"

It sounded like a joke, but none of the turtles laughed.

The turtles leapt to the ground below, landing gracefully. The leaned into the shadows of the buildings, inching towards a nearby manhole cover. The streets were nearly empty but even in this hectic, scary time, they knew it would be dangerous for them to be spotted by even a regular civilian.

Donatello03 lifted up the manhole and all the turtles plunged in. Michelangelo03 lead them down the tunnels, running at top speed.

* * *

"Raphael! Raphael, wake up!" Leonardo07 pleaded, shaking his brother. He'd been doing so for nearly a half hour, but with hardly any progress. Raphael still lay on his chest on the ground, eyes closed. Leonardo had felt a very small pulse in his brother, but there wasn't much hope. Raphael had been hit harder than Leonardo knew was good for him.

Leonardo07 didn't know what he would do if Raphael died. He remembered fighting alongside his closest brother, in training sessions or battles, for a good part of his life. If Raphael was dead, it was like a part of Leonardo was, too.

"Raph!" Leonardo squeaked, shaking his brother harder. _"Raph!_" he pleaded louder. He felt cold inside, fearing the worst. His brother wasn't moving. Raphael couldn't be dead. If he was - _if he was_ - it was all the 2003 and 1987 turtles' fault. _They attracted Shredder to this dimension somehow_, Leonardo thought. Rational thought had left him ages ago; now only panic and paranoia was in his mind.

There was the sound of police sirens coming towards the building. Surely, someone had heard or seen the huge and noisy fight with the Shredder and had called the police. Leonardo didn't have much longer. He had to do something, quick.

Finally, Raphael moved. His fingers flexed and he groaned, a low deep groan full of pain. Leonardo leapt back in surprise. Raphael opened his eyes slowly, like even that was hard to do. "Get me back in the fight again. That Shredder is going to have a lot of regrets." His voice was weak. He certainly was in no condition to fight, with a large cut running down the length of his right leg, from where Shredder's bladed fist had made contact with his skin.

"Raph!" Leonardo beamed. He pulled his brother to his feet and let him lean on him. "Sorry brother, but the fight is over for now. I'll explain everything when we get back to the Lair." He didn't show it, but he was happier than he'd ever been.

When police men stormed onto the roof two minutes later, their guns out, eyes scanning the area for the people who had made such a ruckus, there were no turtles to be found.

* * *

Leonardo03, Raphael03, Splinter03, and Casey Jones and April sat around in the Lair. Leonardo was on his fourth cup of tea, but nearly everything had changed between his first and his fourth. Donatello and Michelangelo had been missing for hours now. Leonardo and his family were beyond worried.

Casey and Raphael had left the Lair a while ago and had done a thorough search through part of the city, but had come back with no leads. Adding to that, ever since Raphael03 had returned to the Lair, he'd been feeling pained for no reason at all. It had gotten better a few minutes ago, but Raphael had described the pain at the beginning as being unbearable.

"My sons," Splinter said, his eyes weary and his expression sad. He gestured to everyone in the room. "We mustn't panic. Wherever Donatello and Michelangelo are, we will find them. Until we do, I'm sure they'll be capable of taking care of themselves."

Raphael groaned, clutching his side. "You guys go look for them. I'll stay behind in case they come back."

"I'll stay with you," Casey Jones said, nodding to Raphael. He took his mask off his head and set it on the table. Raphael03 smiled.

As Splinter, Leonardo, and April began to walk out of the Lair, there was a sudden noise. It wasn't too loud, but it was nearby. The sound was of something wading through the sewers. They all looked at each other and then leapt behind various pieces of furniture to hide. Casey helped pulled Raphael, who was still in pain, behind the couch.

"What the shell?" Leonardo whispered, peeking from around a table.

A man had walked into their Lair, his menacing eyes soaking up every detail. There were barely any places on his body not covered in sharp, gleaming metal armor. He looked a lot like Utrom Shredder, but that couldn't be him. The turtles had defeated him a month ago, without a doubt.

The man, walking around the Lair and examining it, seemed to be paying only a portion of attention to the Lair. As he walked by April, who was hiding behind a table, seeming to not notice her, his gleaming metal spikes barely inches from her face, she thought she heard buzzing near his ear, echoing inside his helmet. Someone, or something, was speaking to him through an earpiece, but she couldn't make out any words.

"Come and face me, you despicable creatures!" Shredder called. Suddenly, he leaned over the couch and pulled out Raphael, who began to kick and shout. Shredder had known where everyone in the room had been the whole time.

"What do you want with us?" Splinter yelled, coming out of hiding with April and Casey.

Shredder pinned Raphael to the wall. Leonardo leapt out from behind the table and flew towards Shredder, his foot pointing outwards for the kick. The metal menace ducked at the right second, too late for Leonardo to react, and the blue-masked turtle ended up making contact with Raphael's chest instead. The red-masked screamed in pain and, now that Shredder was no longer holding him, slid down the wall into a heap on the floor.

"Man, is Raphael getting dealt all the hard blows today or what!" shouted a new voice. Leonardo turned and was surprised to see his brother Michelangelo.

And Michelangelo?

Two more orange-masked turtles followed the tall, square one into the Lair. The first was familiar - Michelangelo87 - the second was not. He was very tall, even a few more inches taller than Michelangelo03, and was lithe and skinny. His eyes were big and he was obviously as energetic as the other two.

"What's going on?" Raphael03 called to Michelangelo03. "Who is this yahoo attacking us?" He pressed himself against the wall, struggling to stand up.

"It's a long story!" Michelangelo07 replied. He ran to the Shredder and knocked him down with a single kick. Even more turtles, one of them a very unfamilar-looking Donatello, rushed into the Lair and began to hold the Shredder back, dealing him a large number of blows.

Raphael03 stood up, his leg aching where Leonardo had kicked it, but looked up at his blue-masked brother and gave him a thumbs-up. He ran into the chaotic fight with the Shredder, only a little slower than usual.

Donatello07 approached the Shredder in just a blur and gave the villain a round-house kick. He recoiled, punching Donatello away, as he was surrounded in blurs of green. He felt fists and feet and weapons fly at him, some only denting his armor, some causing him pain. He could hardly see what was going on and anger boiled underneath his skin.

"ENOUGH!" He hunched forward and then broke loose, knocking the turtles backwards. They landed on the ground more than five feet away. Shredder, now free, lunged for Leonardo87, pulling him up into the air by his throat.

As Michelangelo87 stood up, the dented Trans-dimensional Portal Stick laying a yard or so away, he began to protest,"Let Leonardo go!" He ran towards the Shredder, only to have Leonardo thrown at him. They both fell into a heap, groaning.

Leonardo03 stepped back from the fight, suddenly feeling pain in his arm he hadn't remembered beind dealt. He felt winded, as well, all of the sudden. He watched Leonardo87 stand up, who was rubbing his arm in the same spot and catching his breath, too. What was going on?

Shredder grabbed the end of Donatello07's staff that had been soaring towards his face. "You really think you all can defeat me? I will have my revenge! All turtles, and all Splinters, shall pay for the death of Tang Shen!"

"Tang Shen?" Raphael87 said. He turned to Donatello87. "Any idea what he's talking about?" Donatello merely shrugged.

"You will know death!" Shredder roared, his voice echoing for a long time. He kicked Michelangelo87 to the wall, and the turtle's shell left a heavy dent in it. The Lair was being destroyed all over again, a month after it had been last time.

* * *

Karai watched from a high vantage point as the Kraang raced from computer monitor to computer monitor, following her father's activity in the new dimension. She could see him, dealing with innumerable turtles, and was confused. Each of those turtles looked so different from the ones she had grown up knowing about. Just how different was each dimension of turtles? Why were there even mutliple dimensions of them?

A few minutes ago, the Kraang had been in a frenzy, the phrase 'Turtle Primes' being tossed around the room. They had began to speak to the Shredder, giving him a relatively short answer to his question as to what the "Turtle Primes" were. Their answer simply was "We don't really know" phrased into their long, confusing way of talking.

They had only found out about the dimensions of other turtles a short time ago. Shredder couldn't expect them to know everything about it yet. Karai felt like her father was sort of being used as a lab rat, sent out to multiple dimensions so soon as the Kraang watched, taking notes. It was like they had found a way to manipulate the Shredder, who was so narrow-minded and unsuspecting, to do their bidding. If he couldn't destroy the turtles, the Kraang would step in and do the job for him. Better to put him in the line of fire first, just in case he could actually take down the turtles.

Karai had had enough. She was disgusted at the Kraang for using her father in such a way. She leapt down from her vantage point and into the mass of bots. She walked through the crowd like their queen, straight up the monitor. "So, how much do you freaks know about the Turtle Primes?" she asked, curious. She knew wouldn't get much out of them - either the Kraang were holding back information or they really didn't know.

One of the robots stepped forward. "Those known as the Turtle Primes are the source of all life for the turtles."

Karai stretched and yawned. "I figured that much out from their title." She looked at the bot. "Is that _all_ you know?"

The Kraang hesitated, still, but finally spoke again. "Kraang figures that if those known as the Turtle Primes are eliminated, all of those known as the turtles would die as a result."

"So, you pretty much guessed that?" Karai said, leaning on the computer, looking up at the Kraang with a sadistic expression. "You don't know what their dimension looks like, or even how to find it? How do you even know the Turtle Primes exist?"

"Kraang has only what are known as theories. From study of all turtles of many dimensions, Kraang has noted what is similar and what is different about each. There is a remnant of what are known as the Turtle Primes in each turtle of every dimension. It is known as 'Source DNA'."

"Huh." Karai nodded, more interested in looking at her reflection in her sword. "So, I'm guessing, if you break down the source DNA in a turtle, you'd be able to use that to find where Turtle Prime is?" She looked up and saw the Kraang in a stunned silence. "What? You think I'm not smart?" She huffed and walked away, slicing off one of the robots legs as she went.

As she stood in the doorway to the room, Karai turned and looked at the giant monitor. The fuzzy image of her father fighting off so many turtles.

Shredder's way of travelling through all of the dimensions to kill the turtles one by one was a rash and uneducated idea. Karai knew that now, since taking everyone down by killing the Turtle Primes would be much easier. There's no telling what lies out in the many dimensions of the multi-verse. Shredder surely didn't think he'd live to kill them all, did he? Did his thirst for revenge take him over the edge?

As she walked out of the room, she remembered what she'd said. "_If you break down the source DNA in a turtle, you'd be able to use that to find where Turtle Prime is_." She didn't know how she knew that, but the least she knew was that it was right. She also knew Shredder would not live if he continued to fight each and every dimension of turtles. If she wanted to see him again, she would have to do something.

* * *

Donatello07 leapt on Shredder's back and the menace thrashed around trying to pull him off. Michelangelo03 swerved in between his moving arms and kicked Shredder in the chest. Donatello leapt off of Shredder's back as the man fell to the ground. The purple-masked turtle ran forward and pulled Michelangelo03 away as the rest of the turtles, plus Splinter and Casey, began to attack the man while he was down.

Donatello07 could see the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick a short distance away, forgotten in the heat of battle. He pointed it out to Michelangelo03. "Bring that over here. We've got to send Shredder away again. He doesn't belong to this dimension either. Plus, we're not exactly winning this battle" - their was a loud noise and Donatello03 flew back into wall (Donatello07 winced, feeling a jab of pain as well).

Michelangelo03 looked around at the crumbling walls and destroyed furniture. "Plus, he's completely trashing our Lair." The orange-masked turtle turned and ran towards the portal stick, and once he secured it in his grasp, he ran back to Donatello07.

Donatello07 took the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick into his hands. "Now, if we just track Shredder's particle emmissions, like Donatello Classic said, we'll be able to find where Shredder came from." He ducked as Michelangelo87's nunchucks flew over his head, their owner not too far behind. "Only problem is, we have to get this thing close to Shredder until the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick gets enough information to specify his dimension."

"Gotcha," Michelangelo03 said, giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "...Sort of." He grabbed the Portal Stick and began to run towards the Shredder. "Cowabunga! Hey, Shredder knock-off! Bet you can't catch me!" He dodged the Shredder's flying fists and flipped the machine on.

Donatello07 rubbed his temples, worried for both Michelangelo03 and the device. "We really shouldn't trust the Mikeys with the Portal Stick," he groaned.

"A little help here!" Michelangelo03 called, backing away from the Shredder's persistant attacks with the Portal Stick clutched close to his chest. It hummed mechanically, lighting up, as it sensed the particle emmissions portal use had left on the Shredder's body.

Leonardo03 and Leonardo87 rushed up to help, kicking and punching to their hearts content. They distracted Shredder and Michelangelo03 was able to get even closer to him, pointing the Portal Stick at the man. It began humming louder.

"Fools! You are no match for the Shredder!"

Leonardo03 and Leonardo87 shared a knowing glance and smiled wide. "No, I think it's the other way around." They ran up and simultaneously kicked Shredder in the chest, enough to send him stumbling into the wall.

"The Trans-dimensional Portal Stick is done!" Michelanagelo03 called as the device stopped humming, surprised as he saw an image of the Shredder's dimension spread out from the device, projecting onto the floor. Michelangelo03 gazed at it wide-eyed. "_Woah, _that New York is cool!"

"Mikey!" Raphael03 whined. Michelangelo03 jumped and was reminded again of what he was supposed to be doing. He ran towards the Shredder, aiming the image. "Hasta la vista, Shred-head! Send me a postcard!"

Shredder ran from the image, hissing into his earpiece. "Kraang, send me a portal! Now!" He fended off Michelangelo03 near him, his sharp metal hand landing on the Portal Stick. There was a "klang" and a large dent was left in its surface. The image sputtered and flickered off.

"Hurry, my son! We cannot let Shredder escape!" Splinter shouted. He and Casey ran after Shredder, trying to grab hold of him. Shredder suddenly stopped and thrust his fist forward, sending the frail Splinter backwards. He advanced toward the rat, moaning on the ground, but Donatello03 shouted and ran in to stop him. Suddenly, something appeared about ten yards away. It was obviously a portal, but looked different from the ones the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick opened up. It glowed pink and its surface looked a little like water. Shredder bolted through it, Donatello03 close at his heels, anger flaring up his eyes, and the portal closed before anyone else got even close to it. Donatello03 was inches away from where it had been a millisecond before.

"No!" Donatello03 shouted. "He's out in the multi-verse again! And we have no idea where." He turned and looked behind him, at Splinter standing up slowly. _Shredder's gone too far. _

"No worries, bro!" Michelangelo03 said. He tapped his forehead, indicating he had an idea. "We'll track the particle emissions! Trusty ol' particle emissions."

"Uh, I don't think that glorified flashlight is going to be tracking anything," Raphael87 said, staring at the humongous dent in the side of the device. "Shredder dealt it quite a blow."

"I knew we shouldn't trust Michelangelo with the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick!" all three Donatellos groaned. Donatello87 walked up and took the Portal Stick into his hands, analyzing it quickly.

"Yes, Shredder decimated the device on the machine I installed to track the particle emissions. It will take hours to fix, maybe days! Time we don't have." He flicked a switch and the machine whirred, projecting a new image onto the wall, and onto Michelangelo07 standing in front of it. "Fortunetly, the portals still work...sort of." The image flickered and blinked on and off.

"Well, at least we know what dimension Shredder came from," Michelangelo03 said, trying to cheer his brothers up. "I got a good look at that dimension. Now we've just got to find Shredder and put him back in his place."

"Let's stop wasting time!" Raphael03 said, cracking his knuckles. "Let's go find him. If we have to travel through every dimension of the multi-verse, so be it."

"It'll be fun!" Raphael87 said. He smiled and Raphael03 just stared at him.

"How are we the same turtle? You're more goofy than Mikey." Raphael03 rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall next to Michelangelo07. He looked at the turtle up and down - his first time really looking at a 2007 turtle for a long amount of time. He raised an eye-ridge but didn't say anything, inwardly groaning at the fact that Michelangelo was now taller than him.

Donatello07 turned on the machine and flipped the switch to a random dimension. "There's no telling what dimension he'll be in. We'll just have to go through them randomly." He looked up at the image of the dimension, seeing a huge city, with bustling streets. There were many people hanging around the buildings, all eating pizza. Four tall forms walked through the bustling crowd, all wearing trench coats and hats pulled low over their faces. A woman followed them, her arms piled with three pizza boxes. The image flickered on and off again, the scene the portal displayed following the trench-coated people like a camera. They were obviously the turtles. When no one was looking, the disguised ninjas opened up a manhole cover and leapt in, the woman following after.

"That dimension looks nice," Michelangelo87 said,"Definitely enough pizza! Totally bodacious!" The turtles approached the portal cautiously.

"Hurry, my sons!" Splinter said. "I'll come with you. You'll need as much help as you can get." He approached the turtles, but as soon as he took a step, he groaned and fell to the floor. Casey and April ran up to him, helping him to his feet.

"Splinter, are you okay?" April said.

"I injured my foot while fighting the Shredder," Splinter said. "I'd hoped I could continue even with the injury but I see now that I need time to heal." April nodded and looked to Casey, silently agreeing that they'd stay behind with Splinter. Plus, that Shredder was unpredictable, he might come back to this dimension, so they'd have to protect Splinter.

All of the turtles nodded, all feeling sorrow for the sensei's injury, even if he wasn't necessarily their Splinter. All the turtles had a strange sort of connection to him. They turned and rushed into the portal, knowing they'd wasted more time than was sensible.


	4. Chapter 4: A Threat Unexplained

-The 2012 Universe-

The four turtles sat on the rooftop, their mask ends fluttered in the night breeze. Their white eyes followed the Purple Dragons, wandering along the street in a close group, stashing stolen wallets in their pockets and swinging filched purses around their meaty arms. As they crossed the street, the turtles followed them along on the rooftops, never taking their white eyes off of the criminals. The full moon shone behind them, white stars splattered across the darkness like flecks of paint.

Raphael stood in the back of the group, watching the Purple Dragons. Leonardo stood in front of him, leaning over the edge of the building as he watched the criminals meander through the empty streets. He was anxious, ready to go home to watch a Space Heroes special on television that he'd recorded the night before. Yet he put on a serious face and pretended to be greatly interested in the Purple Dragons.

As the Purple Dragons crossed a man on the street and stuck on their guns, commanding him to give them his cash, the turtles finally decided it was the right time to intervene. They leapt from the roof gracefully, raining down in a circle around the three criminals. The man being held up screamed and scrambled away.

Leonardo made the first attack. He ran forward and swept outwards with his katana, narrowly missing a man's leg. Once the Purple Dragon was distracted, Michelangelo ran forward and brought the man down from behind. "Booyahkasha!" He then tripped another one and threw him down atop the first. These Purple Dragons were easy to defeat.

Soon enough, the turtles stood in front of an unmoving pile of groaning thieves. "Do you think we can go home now?" Leonardo asked, looking for more Purple Dragons. He was bouncing with energy. "There's an hour-long Space Heroes special for the thirtieth anniversary I want to watch." His brothers ignored him, as they always did when he got on the subject of his favorite television show. Just as he began to walk down the street towards a manhole cover, figuring his patrol was done for the night - six long hours of crime-fighting finished - Leonardo heard footsteps and talking, faint and distant. He turned to his brothers and hissed, "Humans are coming!" The turtles didn't hesitate - they immediately leapt into the nearest dark alleyway. They watched as a few late night shoppers strode across the street, not even noticing the unconscious criminals on the sidewalk as they gossiped.

Once the danger was gone, the pink shopping bags swinging around the corner, Michelangelo the freckled turtle let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He took a step forward, only to have a hand curl around his ankle and pull him to the ground and into the deepest of the alley's shadows. "Aaaah!"

"Mikey!" Raphael yelled. Suddenly, Michelangelo flew out of the darkness like he'd been thrown and knocked over Donatello. As the turtles were distracted, something walked out of the darkness. Karai. She stopped and leaned to one side, her metal armor reflecting the surprise in all of the turtles' faces. She sneered smugly.

"Surprise."

"How did you find us?" Donatello asked, pushing Michelangelo off of him and standing up.

"Easy. If I pay the Purple Dragons enough, those morons will be glad to play bait for you. All they have to do is a commit a crime and you guys will be there to knock them down. A simple fact my father has yet to realize."

Leonardo suddenly burst,"But Shredder is not your-"

"That is an ordeal for another time, _Leonardo_," Karai spat, exaggerating the word with a tone of disgust. It seemed fake, though, like part of her actually didn't hate Leonardo. Like part of her wanted so badly to believe him. She put on a confident face again, contradicting the raging and uncertain emotions insider her, and said,"Come and get me, freak."

Leonardo ran towards her, swords at the ready. Karai merely slid out of his way and kicked him backwards. Leonardo was sent tumbling back, his equilibrium gone. She caught Michelangelo's nunchucks that flew towards her face. She was energetic and alert tonight, her eyes dancing. Something was up her sleeve.

"What do you want with us now?" Raphael groaned. He made a sloppy jab at her arm that she caught. Karai turned to look at him, her expression smug and prideful. She leaned her neck to each side and cracked the joints, ready for some _real_ fighting.

"Nothing much. I only need to filthy turtles for something bigger. Sad that you won't live to see it in full."

That was when Rahzar and Fishface leapt down from the rooftops above.

* * *

-1990 movie universe-

Leonardo03 screamed as he fell out of the swirling portal, soaring a good ten feet until he hit the ground with a loud thud and a sharp intake of breath. He stared up at the ceiling, six feet of it taken up by the portal. This place was dank and dirty, much more filthy than Leonardo03's home dimension, that was for sure. It wasn't very remarkable, just a grungy sewer. If this was where the turtles of this dimension resided, they couldn't be radically different than any other dimensions.

Leonardo03 sat up and began rubbing his neck, sore from the unexpected fall. Suddenly, he heard a shrill "Look out below!" and peered upwards to see Michelangelo07 hurtling towards him.

Leonardo let out the most uncharacteristic, _feminine_ shriek and scrambled out of the way. His efforts were in vain, however, as he merely ended up being used as a landing pad by Raphael87 instead.

"Gee, thanks for breaking my fall!" Raphael87 said, his hand held out for a high-three that was never fulfilled. He turned to the grimy sewer wall and said,"Who knew turtle shells were so soft to land on?"

"Get off of me!" Leonardo03 groaned, tired of the goofy turtle's shenanigans already. He shoved off the turtle, standing up and walking out of the water as he brushed himself off, trying to regain the aura of a balanced leader once again. He hoped no one had heard his high-pitched scream.

"So, where do you reckon we are?" Raphael03 said, coming up alongside Leonardo03, examining the sewer tunnel with his white eyes. Raphael03 and Leonardo03 were a bit behind on what was going on, because they had only joined the fight against the mysterious new Shredder a few minutes ago. As the large group of turtles began to stumble down the tunnel, they filled the two newcomers in.

"That is an...interesting story," Leonardo03 said once it was over, trying not to look overly shocked or confused. He felt, as the leader, he should remain calm and level-headed at all times, showing no expression but confidence.

"Yeah, but I have something more confusing to tell you guys," Raphael03 interjected. The turtles nodded for him to talk, so he began. "When Donatello and Michelangelo were missing, me and Casey -"

"You mean 'Casey and I',"Donatello87 interrupted, always the brainiac.

"No, it was _me_ and Casey. Not _you _and Casey," Raphael03 growled, unintentionally causing a few turtles to laugh. "...Anyway, when I came back to the Lair with Casey, I suddenly felt a lot of pain. My leg hurt and a felt like I'd gotten hit in a lot of places, even though I haven't got into a fight recently. It was completely random. Have any of you guys been feeling like that?"

"Actually, I have," Leonardo87 said, his brothers and the rest of the 2003 turtles raising their hands, too. Donatello and Michelangelo of the 2007 turtles raised their hands tentatively, only half agreeing.

"That's odd," Donatello03, putting his chin in his hand as he thought. "It seems we are each feeling each other's pain, if it's strong enough. Raphael, I believe the pain you were feeling was the pain of the tall, lithe Raph (Raphael07). He'd gotten really beat up during a fight. We seem to be feeling the pain of our dimensional-duplicates of the same name. I don't know why or how, but that's all I can deduce. We don't have much to theorize with, besides odd bursts of unpredictable agony."

"I haven't been feeling anything odd like this until we were all connected again," Michelangelo87 said. "When Donatello" - he pointed to the tall Donatello03 - "came back to our dimension. Once we started fighting the Shredder, I suddenly felt hurt when the other Michelangelos were hit or something. It wasn't strong usually, but it was totally mondo bizarro!"

The turtles stopped talking, having run out of things to say about the subject. Their minds were full of unanswered questions there was no way to solve at the moment. They would have to wait to solve the mystery. For now, they had the task of finding Shredder. How long that would take and whether they would reach him before anything bad happened were more questions they felt nervous thinking about.

Finally, Raphael03 spoke, after a long ten minutes of walking. "Man, we've been walking _forever_. One thing I know about these turtles already is that they're well-hidden." Always the impatient one.

_"Excellent!"_ shouted a voice. The word rang throughout the sewers, echoing loudly, along with the sound of skateboard wheels clattering along on the rough floor of the sewers. A shadow, long and narrow and oddly shaped, appeared around the bend. The sounds of four more skateboards joined the first, noisy and constant, along with a lot of jeering and excited whooping. Catchphrases mingled into the conglomeration of noises.

"Scratch what I just said," Raphael03 said,"These turtles are noisier than Mikey on a sugar rush."

The turtles didn't have time to prepare themselves as the 1990 turtles rushed around the bend, doing flips, tricks, and 180s with their boards. Michelangelo90 was the first to spot the ten turtles standing in front of him, and he was so shocked he lost focus on the trick he was doing and fell to the floor in an unflattering heap, his board scooting away. His three brothers came up behind him, stopping their boards and catching them in their hands. They stared at the 2007, 2003, and 1987 turtles with shocked expressions. Michelangelo90 shrieked, a little late.

"Woah, dudes, do we look like dorks," Michelangelo87 said aloud. The rest of his group silently agreed with him. The 1990 turtle standing farthest back, his eyes surrounded by a thick red mask, growled and narrowed his eyes, looking menacing.

"Uh...not that dorks aren't cool!" Michelangelo87 added, holding up his hands in a defensive manner.

"Nice save, Michelangleo," Donatello87 said sarcastically. He leaned against his bo and looked at the new turtles with mixed awe and confusion. The new turtles still hadn't said a word and Michelangelo90 still lay on the floor. These turtles _did_ look odd. Their heads were large, with expressive eyes, and their faces were shaped like that of a frog, especially Donatello90's. They were fairly tall, a light shade of green, with simple gear and weapons strapped to their belts.

"What do you bozos want?" Raphael90 asked in a thick New Yorker accent, pointing to his shiny, sharp sai hung loosely around his belt. "Talk fast."

Michelangelo87 pushed his way to the front of his group, the turtles around him groaning as he prepared to start his story, knowing what was coming. "Well, um...uh...A short time ago, in a dimension far, far away..."

* * *

-1987 dimension-

Shredder12 was running, feeling a tall turtle close at his heels, grabbing at him - trying to prevent him from entering the portal. But the turtle had been only a second too late, and Shredder had made it safely into the emergency portal Kraang had provided him.

The metal-covered menace stepped out of the swirling pink vortex, his head held high. He felt exhausted and his bleeding leg was screaming in pain, but he ignored it. Determination flared through him, his blood pounding. He clenched and unclenched his fists, huffing in anger. He had already failed to destroy that congested group of multiple turtle dimensions twice - he couldn't fail again. He felt that destroying all turtles and Splinters everywhere would be enough to pay for Tang Shen's death. She'd meant everything to Shredder, but he wasn't willing to admit he'd been the villain she didn't love. That it was his fault she was dead.

Shredder finally opened his eyes, ready to soak up the new dimension he was in. He opened his eyes, finding himself standing in a fairly dark alleyway as the portal closed behind him, the faint pink glow the buildings nearby were bathed in from the portal fading away. This New York was the strangest yet. It was colorful, with fairly short buildings, sort of like a cartoon. Hardly a citizen walking along the sidewalks looked normal - some wore strange outfits or hefted around ancient boomboxes. They didn't see Shredder, but he was fairly certain that if they did, they wouldn't be surprised by his get-up.

Every color in the city was bright and happy. This couldn't be New York, but it was. Shredder stared straight ahead of him to the building across the street, labeled 'Ninja Pizzaria'._ You've got to be kidding me_, he thought.

"Any Shredder who has to live in this dimension has my deep respect."

He slumped against the wall, taking off his helmet and rubbing his forehead, feeling a bruise building up on a spot where a nunchuck had hit him. His leg was still bleeding, but less worse now. Shredder caught his breath, trying to forget the fight he'd just had, the one he'd lost. He hated losing, almost as much as he hated Hamato Yoshi. The turtles would pay, and he wouldn't give up until all of them lay dead at his feet and their sanseis fell by his blades . He put his helmet back on his head and adjusted it. "Kraang."

There was a quick burst of static, and some garbled speech. The earpiece had been damaged badly from the non-stop fights. "Shredder...those known as..." The menace quickly ripped it out as the device made a high-pitched screech. He pressed a few buttons on it, hoping he was adjusting it and not making it worse. He fixated it back around his ear and spoke again. "Kraang."

The signal was still fairly poor, but better. "Shredder. Kraang is what is known as disappointed."

"Whatever for?" Shredder suddenly felt anger flare up inside him again, like a monster he couldn't control. In the back of his mind, he knew it had been his poor temper that had killed Tang Shen, his inability to see her happy with someone else, but he always had blamed it on Splinter. "I see nothing wrong with what I have done so far!"

"You have failed Kraang on two occasions. Kraang has told Kraang of your incapability to fight against those known as the turtles."

"LIES!" Shredder turned and slammed his fist into the wall.

"Kraang is what is known as disappointed. You lied to Kraang. Kraang did not lie to you, that which is known as the Shredder."

Shredder punched the wall again and seethed, his voice deep and guttural, into the earpiece. "I do not obey you, _you_ obey me! Do not tell me what I am doing is not up to your standards, because I am not looking to please you! I am looking to avenge Tang Shen. She was taken from me!"

"The Kraang are what is known as sympathetic for you. That was what is known as sarcasm."

"Tell me where the turtles of this dimension are!" Shredder roared. He heard a few people on the sidewalks stop and stare at him, apparently roaring at himself and punching the wall. Dressed in terrifying metal armor with a bleeding leg. He must look insane, even for this crazy dimension, but he didn't care. "_Tell_ _me!" _His loud voice caused bird pirched upon the roof of the building to caw and fly away, and the people staring at him to scramble off.

"Those known as the turtles of this dimension are not currently in this dimension." There was another burst of static from the earpiece.

"They must have been in that large group of them that fought me," Shredder deduced,"Those turtles looked like a mix of many different ones, they all had to come from somewhere! If there are none here, is there still a Splinter? Or is he gone, too? Tell. Me."

"The rat known as Splinter is currently in the dimension which is the dimension you are in."

"Direct me to him," Shredder commanded.

"Kraang do not know if Kraang should accept your involvement in Kraang's plans any longer. Kraang found that no turtles, known as 'The turtles', have been destroyed by you."

Shredder felt infuriated. Never before had someone commanded him to do something, or removed a privilege from him. It had always been him, sitting in the throne and barking orders to subservient foot soldiers or mutants. "Fine, I'll find that infernal rat myself. You'll see." He swept his cape and bent down to lift up a manhole cover that was on the floor of the alley. He leapt in and stomped down the sewer tunnel.

* * *

-2012 dimension-

Karai was the first to walk out of the elevator. She strode calmly past the many Kraangs, ignoring the brain-like blobs staring up at her with hatred in their putrid green eyes. She walked to the end of the room, her metal armor clanking with each step, her long sword dragging across the floor, scratching a long uneven line through the spotless white floor. She was the one spot in the whole room not white or pink, she was the blotch of dirt the Kraang couldn't sweep away. She liked the fact that they despised her but couldn't kill her, fearing Shredder's wrath. They were even afraid of the Shredder when he had no clear way to get to them, like now.

She stared up at her father on the monitor, wandering aimlessly through the sewers of a strange dimension. He looked..._lost. _Immediately, Karai knew the Kraang had abandoned her father, as he'd fallen useless to their mission.

She flipped around, brushing her black bangs out of her face. She listened to the clanking of the elevator as it made another trip towards the room, rising fifty floors to this one. She smirked. It was probably terrifying for those waiting in that metal box, ascending to their doom, and they were no doubt struggling for their freedom. Why try to escape their captors in that elevator? If they did, they would at least never escape _TCRI_ in one piece.

The elevator beeped and the doors slid open, revealing four turtles, looking nothing but scarred and nervous, the pride beaten out of them. Rahzar, his fur black and shiny, stained with blood from a hardy battle, walked out of the elevator, Fishface by his side. They tugged heavy metal chains as they walked, and the turtles struggled to stay put in the elevator, fighting against the metal digging deep into their skin. Finally, Michelangelo fell onto his plastron on the white linoleum, helplessly dragged along the floor by Rahzar, like nothing more that a rag doll. The others, shocked by their brother's fall, were quick to stumble as well.

Leonardo felt the rusty metal chains dig into his wrist, so deep and tight his hands began to bleed. He turned towards his brothers, who looked defeated, and said,"Don't worry. We'll get out of this. We always do."

Raphael looked towards his brother, anger flaring up deep inside him, like an uncontrollable flame. "Leo, we're done. This room is full of Kraang, Footbots, Rahzar, Fishface, and Karai. And we're in really bad shape. Face it, we're done."

Rahzar stopped to converse with Karai, and finally the chains around Leonardos' arms slackened a little. He looked around the room, remembering it. He looked to the window and could remember vividly the day he'd let his brothers escape, leaving him to fight the Kraang alone. Leaving him to burst out of the window of TCRI fifty floors up in a desperate escape attempt, defeated and nearly killed. He had fallen for what felt like hours, days, until Raphael had saved him. The memory was horrible, and it was so vivid he could still feel the sensation of the ground rushing up to meet him, the view of the entire sprawling city as he fell through the sky. Leonardo closed his eyes tight, pushing back the memory. He had to stay strong. He had to fight even when his brothers had given up.

Michelangelo and Raphael were lead across the room by Fishface, not fighting anymore. Michelangelo's arm was bleeding badly. Rahzar followed Fishface, tugging Raphael and Leonardo along with him. They were brought to a large machine near the computer monitors. There were four rectangular boxes, solid like odd-shaped tables, about six feet long and three feet wide, that seemed to be a mere extension of the white linoleum floor, rising out of it. They had streaks of pink running across the white sides, but the tops of them were a strange, shifting blue. Michelangelo was thrown down atop the first and cuffs rose out of the sides, trapping his arms and legs.

"What is that?" Donatello said. Last time they'd been in this room, there had been nothing like these contraptions.

"You think I'm going to tell you?" Karai scoffed. "They _were_ going to be some new useless invention by the Kraang; I assume a new portal or something. With a little convincing, they agreed to alter them for the purpose I wanted them to serve. The Kraang are so advanced with their technology, they only needed a few hours notice." Fishface thrust Donatello onto the next machine, grinning as the cuffs trapped the turtle's arms and legs.

Leonardo began to stuggle against his chains again, as Raphael was pulled onto the next. Karai saw the blue-masked turtle, the fear in his eyes, and smirked. She walked over to Rahzar and took Leonardo's chains from him. She then kicked Leonardo hard in the shell, causing him to stumble. Fishface caught him and put him on the last of the machines. Karai turned and walked up a set of stairs nearby, to the monitors. Shredder was still projected on them, wandering through the sewers still; the Kraang no longer cared about him. Karai then turned to the Kraang and hissed a command. "Turn the machines on."

Leonardo felt the machine he was attached to began to grow steadily warmer, heating up. The blue top he lay on began to glow, getting brighter and brighter by the second. His skin was bathed in its eerie blue glow, as he fought uselessly against the cuffs around his limbs, thrashing. His brothers screamed beside him, scared for what would happen next.

"Karai! What are you going to do to us?" Raphael shouted, his voice hoarse. She just stared, not smiling, but not frowning.

Then the pain started. Leonardo and his brothers screamed simultaneously, shutting their eyes tight. Finally, all of them were trying to break lose, doing anything to escape the sheer pain. Leonardo felt like the every fiber of his being was being torn apart. He clenched his fists and opened his eyes. Spots sprang up in his vision, a multitude of colors. He could see Karai, very blurry and surrouded in red. There was pain, and nothing but pain. He screamed in agony, knowing he was about to die. He couldn't think, he couldn't move, and it felt like every part of him was on fire from the intense heat below him. It was the most painful experience of his life.

The blue glow was stronger than ever. Leonardo's eyes were white, something that happened whenever he or his brothers became angry, and if he was free, he knew he would be fighting hard. "Karai!" he called. She stared down at him. He clenched his teeth, trying to take his focus from the pain, and yelled once more. "KARAI!" His voice was desperate, his usual confidence completely gone from it.

Karai bit her lip. Her eyes flickered from the monitor, presenting stats and percentages the Kraang had analyzed from the source DNA they were extracting from the turtles. She stared back down at them - at Leonardo - in the most excruciatingly painful situation they'd ever been in. Leonardo, the turtle who'd tried to bring the good inside her to the surface, was about to die. In the least honorable way possible. She tried to smile, tried to hide her worry, but it showed. He was her weakness. If he should die by her fault someday, it would be by her sword, not by a machine. It wasn't the way of the ninja.

It felt like deja vu, as she rushed, pushing Kraang to the ground, and slammed her fist on the button. The machines turned off instantly, and the turtles were left panting and wide-eyed, still kept down by the cuffs. It felt like this had happened to her once before, only a little differently.

"Karai..." Leonardo said quietly, in shock. He couldn't feel anything but confusion and pain, and he certainly didn't feel like he could move. It felt like part of him was gone, but he was all there. It felt like there was a cavity inside himself, where something used to be.

"GO!" Karai yelled to the turtles, Kraang staring at her with confusion. "Before I change my mind!" The cuffs released the turtles, and Raphael stumbled weakly to his feet. He then helped Leonardo up. Karai ran down the steps, chasing the weakened turtles with her sword all the way to the elevator. "GO!"

Leonardo gave her the most hurt, confused expression as he stumbled into the elevator. "Karai, Splinter is -" Leonardo said, before the elevator shut in his face, taking another desperate chance to break the truth to Karai. She kicked the door as it closed, emotion flowing through her. She didn't know if she regretted freeing the turtles or not. She looked up at the Kraang, who were looking down at her. "You did get enough of their source DNA to analyze where Turtle Prime is?" The elevator slid away behind her.

"Affirmative."

Karai looked down at her sword, at her unsure reflection in it. She knew she could kill any dimension of turtles but this one. She was too close to this Leonardo, too attached to let him die. She couldn't kill him when she had to see him suffer. Other turtles were out there, with no connection to her. She could kill them, and this dimension's turtles would die as well. That would be fine with her. She did want the turtles dead, but a small part of her always prevented her from finishing the job. She wouldn't stop herself the next time she had the opportunity to see them fall at her feet. She looked up, brushed her messy hair out of her face, and spoke, authority and confidence replacing the fear in her voice. "Find me Turtle Prime."

* * *

Shredder12 wandered into a new tunnel in the sewers. He'd been doing so for so long, he'd began to wonder whether he'd ever find the Lair of this dimension or not. Sunlight from holes in a manhole cover shone down on him, letting him see. Besides the small beams of sunlight, the sewers were dark.

It felt like he'd been walking through the sewers for at least an hour when he finally stumbled into a strange room. It was lighter than the rest of the sewers, oddly, and held a strange homey feeling. It was welcoming. There was a television, looking years outdated, tucked into a corner with a red roughed-up couch facing it. A turtle design rug lay on the floor, and there was a circular door on the right leading into a kitchen and more rooms onward. Shredder had never imagined a group of turtles and a rat making a home so comfy as this in the sewers.

"SPLINTER!" the Shredder called, and the silence snapped. "I know you're here, come out of hiding!" When nothing happened for several seconds, Shredder stomped up the doorway to the kitchen and pulled Splinter out of the corner of the room. The rat had been well-hidden and was shocked to have been found. He thrashed around as Shredder held him up and examined him.

This Splinter was much different than he expected. The rat was short, hunched over, with brown fur, a red robe, and a cane. He had large front teeth and a long tail. This Splinter looked weak and old. "Shredder, let me down. How have you found the Lair?"

"I'm sure your brain is much to small to understand even if I did tell you how I got here," Shredder said, throwing the rat to the ground.

"Where are my sons?" Splinter shouted harshly, his authoritative voice implying that he didn't fear the villain and what Shredder could do to him. He didn't care about anything but his sons and their safety.

Shredder smirked behind his metal mask. "They're dead." He drew his sword, the metal sliding sound the only noise in the Lair as the rat lay in complete shock. Shredder raised it above his head, ready to avenge Tang Shen's death all those years ago. He soaked up the glory, finally achieving his goal of killing Splinter. Sort of.

He brought the sword down in a single swift movement.

"NO!" Splinter yelled. He held up his wooden cane, which stopped the sword for a mere second, slowing it down. As the cane held stiff for that short time, Splinter stood and kicked Shredder in the chest, the cane snapping apart as the villain stumbled back. Splinter landed and looked at the Shredder on the ground and smiled. "I may be aged and weak, but do not doubt my abilities, Shredder. I do not let the murderer of my pupils defeat me so easily."

Shredder arched his eyebrows in shock. "If it's a fight you want, you old rat, it's a fight you'll get." He rose to his feet, towering over Splinter, and was determined to not be caught off guard again.

* * *

-1990 universe-

"...So that's our story," Michelangelo87 finished sheepishly. "I know, it must be a lot to take in, compadres."

"That's an understatement," Raphael90 scoffed. He plodded up to the large group of 2007, 2003, and 1987 turtles, scowering suspiciously. "I just got one question." He picked up Raphael87, holding the short turtle up in the air by the back of his shell and ignoring his protests. "You want me to believe this goofball is_ me_?" he asked, pointing to Raphael87's silly belt buckle displaying his initial. Raphael87 could smell the scent of pizza hanging on Raphael90's breath.

"I know, I had a hard time believing it too," Raphael03 said. "I feel ya, bro." Raphael90 smiled and dropped Raphael87 to the ground. He walked forward and stood next to Raphael03.

Raphael87 rubbed his leg, sitting on the groud and staring up the two Raphael's who'd mocked him. He then turned to the wall and said,"Geez, I'm so unique that not even myself is like me!"

Raphael90 raised an eye ridge, looking worried for Raphael87's sanity. "Yo dude, who are you telling the stupid joke to?"

"He does that," Leonardo87 said, shrugging.

"I think we've all taken more than enough time to get to know each other," Donatello07 said. "Must I remind you all that we're on a mission to save the multi-verse from a kill-crazy Shredder?"

"Just how many dimensions of us are in this multi-verse?" Leonardo90 asked, folding his arms. The 2007, 2003, and 1987 turtles merely shrugged.

"A lot. And they're all depending on us. We've got to find Shredder before he gets to Turtle Prime. We have to stop him before he does any permanent damage to_ any _dimension."

Raphael90 leaned back, looking uncomfortable. "Enough time-wastin', then. Let's go find that Shredder and kick his butt."

"So, Big Bad Shredder's not in this dimension, I guess..." Michelangelo87 said, taking out the Trans-Dimensional Portal Stick. "So our next random destination will be..." He flipped it on and a new image shot forcefully from the Portal, knocking Michelangelo87 down. He landed with a thud on the hard floor, shocked by the force.

Donatello03 helped Michelangelo87 up and scowled at the image displayed on the dark sewer wall. "So our next random destination will be...that place."

"It looks..._depressing_," Leonardo03 said, not able to find a nicer word for it.

The city was all black, with black buildings, black streets, and black sky. Four shady forms were duking it out in the rain with a large number of people, way outnumbered. The shady forms were obviously the turtles of the dimension, but no one could get a good look at them. They moved too fast, performing impressive tricks and shouting repetitive catch-phrases.

Michelangelo90 walked forward, ready to enter the new dimension, before Leonardo87 brought him back. The blue-masked turtle strode to the the front of the group, taking the leader position he was so used to, with Leonardo90 and Leonardo03 off to the side, looking irritated. Leonardo87 gestured behind him at the portal. "Guys, this dimension, and those turtles, looks pretty dangerous. We have no idea if they're good guys like us; we pretty much have no knowledge about any dimension we enter, but it looks dangerous to risk entering this one. And look how awesome they are fighting - they could easily take us out." He flinched as one of the turtles in the image sent a man soaring into a brick building.

"You're right, fearless leader," Raphael03 smirked,"You definitely deserve to go first. All you had to do was ask." He strode forward and pushed Leonardo87 through the portal before leaping in himself. The rest of the turtles sat in stunned silence for a moment.

"Well, that happened," Michelangelo07 said, shrugging. He ran forward through the portal as the others jostled behind him. Michelangelo87 was the last to leave the 1990 dimension, snatching up the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick and running through the vortex just before it sputtered and died with a spark.

Several moments passed by, when suddenly April O'Neil walked down the sewer tunnels, brushing her hair back and walking catiously through the water. "Guys?" she called. "I'm going home and Splinter told me to tell you it's getting late and he wants you back in the Lair!" She looked around the tunnel suspiciously, squinting at the shadows. "I swear I heard them in this tunnel seconds ago...Maybe I'm just crazy." She walked down the tunnel, not noticing the four abandoned skateboards in the dark. She decided not to go on looking for the turtles. After all, she had Casey to go home to and there was no way the turtles could get into too much trouble just skateboarding around the sewers.

She was wrong.

* * *

-Out of the Shadows universe- (This is a video game the turtles got in 2013)  
(The OOTS turtles will be referred to with 13 at the end of their name, becuase something about "LeonardoOOTS" just doesn't sound right)

Leonardo13 retreated from the rushing onslaught of Purple Dragons, his green three-toed feet fighting for a grip on the rainslick cement. Barely ten feet away, his brother Michelangelo was hit over the head hard with a wrench by a huge burly gang member, and the orange-masked turtle fell to the ground, unmoving and still, knocked-out completely.

"Mikey's down!" Leonardo13 shouted to his brothers. He hunched back against a building, cornered by five Dragons. Leonardo finally unleashed the anger that had been building up inside him - _No one messes with my brothers _- and rushed straight into the very center of the crowd, swinging his swords. He rushed up the biggest and burliest Dragon of the group, the one he presumed leader. Before the man had time to react, Leonardo went straight up into him, jumping into the air and kicking the man in the chest with both feet. The world seemed to freeze for just a second, the pain of the impact visible on the Dragon's face, when suddenly the world sped up again and the man crashed onto the sidewalk. Leonardo ran away and began to attack another man, his swords so swift and fast they left a blur of blue behind them, before Raphael ran in to fend the man off with five bone-crushing fast jabs to the stomach.

Leonardo heard Donatello run up to Mikey, trying to shake him awake. The blue-masked turtle then turned his attention towards the throng of Purple Dragons, most of them running away, seemingly terrified of the two of their own laying on the ground with bloody injuries. Leonardo smiled as Raphael said,"I love it when they run," in his gruff voice. They gave chase, Raphael slowing to run just behind Leonardo. "Yo, secret weapon, Leo."

The blue-masked turtle smiled, knowing just what to do. They were gaining on the Dragons, and once they were only feet away, Leonardo nodded at Raphael, giving the signal. He knelt down on his knees, and Raphael launched off the palm of his hands, soaring into the sky, sai held out. Leonardo dashed forward, punching and kicking every Purple Dragon he came close to, not staying with any too long as progressed forward. Raphael finally landed, coming down hard on a desperate Purple Dragon beginning to climb down the safe side of a mesh wire fence. He knocked the man off the fence, and the landing shook the ground. Raphael quickly leapt up, pulling the limp Dragon to his feet and knocking him out with a jab from the butt of his sai, a blur of red following the weapon's movement. "Down for the count!" the turtle yelled as he let the unconscious man fall from his hands, forming a heap on the wet ground. He turned and looked through the wire fence, smirking as he saw all the other Purple Dragons down, laying still around Leonardo's feet.

"You only got one?" Leonardo teased, stashing his swords back in their holders as he and his brother began to walk back to the street they'd left Donatello and Michelangelo alone on.

They were shocked to see a whole new set of Purple Dragons crowding onto the street, looking energetic and ready to fight. Donatello and Michelangelo - who seemed awfully peppy for a turtle who'd gotten knocked-out only minutes ago - were hunched against the wall of a graffitied car garage, setting out a quick plan of attack. Raphael, who hated planning when he could be hitting instead, cracked his knuckles and leapt straight into the new batch of gang members.

Before Leonardo had time to yell at Raphael for his brashness, or the Dragons had time to throw a punch, and even before Donatello could let loose a snappy insult to his red-masked brother, the wind kicked up all of the sudden. It screamed as it tumbled along, slamming against the Purple Dragons and the four turtles. Michelangelo shouted out as the wind caught him and sent him skittering across the street on his shell, only to slam into an abandoned brick building. As for the Purple Dragons, a good part of them retreated, stumbling as far away as they could, but some chose to stay, clutching onto buildings or other things, staking it out until the wind died.

A purple vortex had appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the street, the middle of it darker than a black hole and the many shades of violet on the outside swirling like paint being mixed. Donatello began to stutter, blasting technological babble about how none of this could be possible, but no one listened. The vortex closed, the wind dying instantly, as a huge crowd stepped out, looking around at their surroundings.

"Turtles? They're _turtles_?" Donatello13 said, wide-eyed, still pressed against a building like he'd been when the wind had been threatening to blow him away.

One of the new forms, tall and lean, with his hands resting on his belt, looked over Donatello13 and half smiled, his eyes under the thick red mask narrowing slightly in a condescending manner. "Yeah, we're turtles. Nice deduction, Holmes." He had a thick New Yorker accent.

By now, the remainder of the Purple Dragons, the ones who hadn't run away screaming either from the wind or the crowd of new turtles, began to advance. The rain poured hard, drenching everything, echoing the mood everyone was in. A bulky Purple Dragon, beating a heavy metal baseball bat against his opposite hand as he approached, glared at the turtles. He didn't know where the new ones had come from, and he didn't care. His gang's goal was to take out the 2013 turtles, with no mercy.

With a deep-throated battle cry, the man hefted up the bat and ran forward. His eyes were focused on his target: Leonardo13's head. Squinting against the pouring ran, his hair in his face, anger clouding his vision, he didn't realize until it was too late that Leonardo13 had ducked away from the bat. The second he realized that was the second he felt the heavy kick to the stomache. His eyes flitted down to Leonardo13, smiling and white eyes shimmering as he prepared another kick, when the man suddenly felt a heavy blow to the back.

Leonardo13's eyes widened, mouth forming a threatening frown, as he saw the man fall face-down on the cement in front of him, knocked-out. Just behind where the Purple Dragon had been standing, one of the new turtles was there, Raphael03, his fists clenched. He nodded to Leonardo13, as the throng of Purple Dragons parted around him, rushing towards the group of turtles with their various odd weapons.

"I had him!" Leonardo13 growled. He didn't trust these new unexplained turtles and he only let his _brothers_ fight alongside him. "You didn't need to come in and take him down!" Leonardo13 slid his katana out in a flash, leaping towards Raphael03 over the unconscious body. Raphael03 slid back in surprise, swiping out his sai to stop the weapon only inches from his face; the metal blades clanged as they made forceful contact. Leonardo13 yelled, inches from Raphael03's face, as the sounds of grunts and shouts sounded behind him from the fight. "I don't know what you are and where you came from, but _you're _not Raph! Don't expect me to trust you until I know what you are!" He thrust his katana forward, sending Raphael03's sai flinging away. Leonardo13 gave the shocked turtle a deathly glare before sprinting off into the bigger fight.

"Maybe little Leo Classic was right..." Raphael03 mumbled to himself as he retrieved his sai, staring down the street at Leonardo13. "Maybe this dimension is too dangerous."

"Don't give up on this place yet, bro!" Michelangelo87 shouted to Raphael03, having overheard him. The orange-masked turtle held up his nunchucks to deflect a Purple Dragon's swinging wrench weapon, gritting his teeth as his body absorbed the impact, and the tool caught in the nunchuck's chains long enough for Michelangelo87 to kick the gang member back. He turned back to Raphael03. "Do you see how awesome these new turtles are at fighting? We need them if we're going to face down old bucket-breath Shredder!"

Raphael03 nodded. As Michelangelo87 ran off, Raphael03 stood up and looked into the huge, chaotic mess of a fight ensuing around him. They had to hurry and defeat the Purple Dragons if they were going to explain everything to the 2013 turtles and get them on their side.

"Time for a staff meeting!" Donatello13 yelled exuberantly, as he swung his bo staff, following but a bright blur of purple light, around to knock a Purple Dragon down.

"Time for a staff meeting?" Michelangelo03 said, raising his eye ridges. He looked over and stared at Donatello13 before resuming his fight with a Purple Dragon. "Worst. Catchphrase. Ever!" Michelangelo03 gave one last punch and the Dragon soared away.

"You'd hate it even more if you knew how often he says it!" Raphael13 growled, hooking his sai around a Dragon's wrench and then bringing the man down with a shocking kick that sent him skittering down the empty cement road for nearly ten feet. Leonardo13 ran up to Raphael13, in an attempt to escape a determined Purple Dragon, and the turtle leapt over his red-masked brother's shell. Raphael13 then stood straight and kicked the attacking Purple Dragon away. The move the two brothers had just done seemed so routine and easy to them, like they'd done it hundreds of times before.

"Dudes, we've got to convince these new turtles to come fight Shredder with us. We don't have to time to knock down all these wimpy criminals!" Michelangelo87 yelled to the others as he ducked a wrench flung towards his face by one of the gang members.

* * *

**Got an idea for a TMNT iteration that should be in this story? Let me know and I could put them in!**

**I know, you're probably wondering why the heck I put the Out of the Shadows turtles into this story. The game wasn't well received but I thought they'd be a nice addition. I freaking LOVE Out of the Shadows (even though I've only gotten to chapter 2 in three months-it's hard for me). I love the moves they use and everything about the game, so I thought it'd be a nice challenge to try to put the essence of the game into writing. The only thing I don't like about the game is how much Donatello yells "Time for a staff meeting!" when he takes down a villain. It's a cool catchphrase at first, but after_ five-hundred times_...**

**I also put the 1990 turtles into this chapter, as well. I love the original movie and Secrets of the Ooze. I have fond memories of both of them. I remember the first time I showed the 1990 movie to my brother, he didn't like the Shredder in the movie because he didn't have a scar across his eye like in the 2012 show he was used to. My brother was practically jumping up and down in happiness when the 1990 Shredder got a scar by his eye in the Secrets of the Ooze! There are just so many memories I have from watching those movies; they are some of my favorite films. Can't say the same about Turtles in Time, though.**

**And I can never get "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go!" out of my head. Just the chorus, too. It's torture! :P**

**Reviews are very much appreciated! **


	5. Chapter 5: Language Barrier

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows dimension-

Donatello13 readied himself - his thick green fingers flexing around his long bo staff, his feet spreading out in a position ready for action - as a crush of Purple Dragons rushed towards him. In the rain-drenched darkness, all that was visible were the gang member's muscular outlines and the glint of their weapons.

Donatello13 took a breath.

The first Dragon came rushing towards him, flailing a crowbar tinted with red, but Donatello13 dodged in an instant. He smirked at the Dragon, moving away from the next attack in a blur. "Time for a staff meeting!" he called, and the Dragon had no time to react before the long bo staff's end hit his chest. While the Dragon was distracted, tumbling back, Donatello13 flipped around, charging the staff's other end into the man's chest. The man shouted out, desperately trying to stumble away. Donatello bounced back a little, swinging his staff in a wide circle, followed by blurs of purple light, before bringing it up to hit his target, right under the Dragon's chin.

The gang member soared straight up into the air, and Donatello13 followed him a second later with a skilled and powerful jump. The man's scared eyes widened in horror and Donatello13 waved at him, ten feet above the ground, before swinging the staff over his head in a blur of violet to meet the man's chest yet again.

There was the sound of bones snapping, the harshness of the impact rippling through the Dragon's body, and the world froze for a second - before the Dragon crashed onto the ground with astonishing force, leaving a crater of broken cement on the sidewalk under him. Donatello13 landed perfectly, and stood up to dust himself off, and immediately felt the crush of a giant wrench hitting his shoulder from another Purple Dragon, looking to avenge his fallen comrade. Donatello13 felt pain in his shoulder, and was slow to bring around his _bo_. The wrench was inches from his face when suddenly a blur of green and blue slammed into the man's body at full force.

Leonardo90 flipped backwards after hitting the man, stumbling a little before steadying himself. He winked at Donatello13, who was still staring in confusion and amazement at him, before running off to fight more. Leonardo90 hoped that by saving Donatello13, he could gain a bit of trust from the new turtle. So far, the 2013 turtles weren't taking kindly to the new group of unexplained duplicates. And the 1990, 2007, 2003, or 1987 turtles hadn't had the time to explain everything yet, but they needed to hurry if they were going to get the 2013 turtles on their side and go after Shredder again.

Leonardo13 saw a glimpse of his reflection grace the side of his katana before he attacked the Purple Dragon, his quick weapon, a blur of silver and blue, not near as sharp as the screams that split the night. The man fell to the ground, cradling his arm, and Leonardo13 now felt the steady pound of feet on the cement, the growls of frustration, and knew that another Dragon was approaching him from behind. The turtle flipped around, only to see the Dragon already on the ground, hopelessly blocking punches being thrown at him by Donatello07. Leonardo13 felt anger rise up deep inside him. These new turtles were unexplained and so sudden. Why were they here? What were their intentions? Leonardo13 didn't feel safe around them and if it meant protecting himself and his brothers from possible danger, he would do anything to keep these new turtles away. The blue-masked turtle let free a deep growl and charged Donatello07, who looked up at the swinging sword with wide eyes, backing away in an instant. Leonardo13 continued to pursue him.

"Dude, can't we talk this out logically?" Donatello07 said, narrowly dodging another swing. "We aren't hear to hurt you!"

Michelangelo07 was no more than a blur of green and orange as he moved around the Purple Dragon in a hectic, disorienting circle, his nunchucks thwapping against the mans legs, arms and neck for fractions of a second. The Dragon made a swipe for Michelangelo07, desperate to escape the painful confusion, but was instead greeted by a powerful kick to the chest. The man slammed into a drab brick building and slid to the ground, unconcscious. Michelangelo07 raised his arms and cheered in victory. "And Mikey does it again! Can anyone defeat this amazing, incredible, purely aston -" His self-praise was knocked short as something slammed into him, pinning him against the wall only feet away from the recently fallen Dragon.

Raphael13 leaned in close to Michealngelo07, his mouth drawn into a frightening frown. Raphael13's thin red mask was faded, stained, and rough around the edges, emphasizing the turtles' threatening white eyes. "_Tell me what's going on_!" Raphael13 hissed into Michelangelo07's face, his hands pinning the Mikey's wrists to the wall too tightly for any hope of escape. Leonardo13 guarded Raphael13, knocking away any enemy coming to close to the red-masked turtle who was getting answers about this unexpected group.

Michelangelo07 drew a breath before speaking. When he did, his voice was a little higher than usual, and he flinched at Raphael13's every move, as he began a rushed version of the story that they'd told every new group of turtles to join the group. The tale he hoped would convince the 2013 turtles to come to his side. To fight a common enemy.

Raphael87 flung a manhole cover like a frisbee at an ensuing Dragon, his hurt arm aching from the effort, but the manhole do much damage. Michelangelo87 heaved up a trash can and threw it at the gang member, knocking him down for a minute but not doing much else. "Even trash doesn't have any affect!" The Dragon continued to advance. Raphael87 and Michelangelo87 were having trouble with these serious, strong villains, as they were much more used to bumbling Shredder and unthreatening mutants. "Dude, we're in for!" Michelangelo87 said as they backed into a cold gray wall, the Dragon smiling as he raised his weapon. "Tell Kala I like her!"

Raphael87 shouted in response,"How? I'll be dead, too!" He shut his eyes tight as the man sniggered and the weapon came swinging down.

There was a sudden movement, and in no time the Purple Dragon lay on the floor, cringing in pain. Leonardo90 stood above him, and the turtle turned to look at Raphael87 and Michelangelo87, who were still pinned against the brick wall, Raphael holding Michelangelo in a Scooby Doo-like fashion. "Grow a backbone," Leonardo90 said before running off, kicking the downed Dragon once more for good measure. Michelangelo87 and Raphael87 shared a glance before Michelangelo quickly leapt away from his brother, sticking out his tongue. He rushed down the street, flinging his nunchucks in an attempt to regain his threatening demeanor. He was ashamed of how cowardly he'd been. After all, he was a ninja.

"Cowabunga!"

They were down to five Purple Dragons still fighting. The rain was pouring harder than ever.

"...and that's the end!" Michelangelo07 gasped, finishing his story he'd told to Raphael13. His wrists were sore from being held tight against the wall for so long. Finally, the red-masked turtle released his grip on Mikey and let him slump against the wall. Raphael13 regarded him in suspiscion for a moment before roughly holding out his hand for a high-three, which Michelangelo07 finished eagerly.

"I believe you, Mike," Raphael13 said in a gruff voice. "There ain't a better explanation for what's going on." A Purple Dragon charged behind him but Raphael13 knocked him out with a punch to the face without even looking behind himself. "I'll be glad to fight Shredder with you. I love any excuse to crack some skulls." He held out his hand and pulled Michelangelo07 to his feet. They were brothers now, not enemies.

Donatello13 suddenly ran to the middle of the group of four Purple Dragons, the only ones left. Michelangleo90 watched in awe as the purple-masked turtle began to switch on a device hooked around his arm. It looked technologically advanced but also a bit like a conglomeration of parts of several different devices Donatelo13 had crammed together. The turtle smiled like he'd already won the fight as the device lit up in a blue-ish glow.

Donatello13 raised his hand that was covered by the strange device and suddenly all of the Purple Dragons around him rose into the air six feet and then slammed back onto the ground full-force. Donatello13 was left smiling, in his hunched posture, at the four unconscious men around him. He brushed himself off and said,"All done." He looked over at Donatello87, staring in amazement. "Like my Gravity Gauntlet?"

"Don't act so smart," Donatello87 said, glowering in uncharacteristic jealousy. Donatello87 was angry at Donatello13 for trying to hit him with his bo staff a few minutes ago. "_If I were you_, I'd have used it long ago, when there were _thirty_ Purple Dragons!" He folded his arms and tried to look haughty.

"Ah, but you _are_ me," Donatello13 said, turning off his device. He had heard a great deal of the story Michelangelo07 had told Raphael13, so he had a pretty good idea about what was going on with these new turtles. "And my Gravity Gauntlet only works in close range and can't be used too much - it has limited power."

"I'd have that device working on solar energy rather than charged power, with an energy storage capacity able to hold enormous amounts of stored solar power for interminable amounts of time. That would greatly increase the Gauntlet's efficiency and usefulness." Donatello87 said this all very fast, in one breath. He wasn't entirely sure what he had said even made sense, as he was just throwing words at Donatello13 in hopes to top him.

Leonardo87 and Raphael90 approached the main group of turtles, who were all huddled around the two smack-talking Donatellos and yelling "Fight, fight, fight!" Leonardo and Raphael raised a white cardboard box into the air and cheered, "Look what we found!"

"PIZZA!" The turtles were distracted from the tension between Donatello87 and Donatello13 and rushed up to grab a slice. Leonardo87 explained finding the pizza box hidden in a dark alleyway, perfectly untouched, and the 2013 turtles said through full mouths that they found pizza like that a lot. It was odd, but the pizza seemed to restore their energy lost in the hard fight. Michelangelo07 took his chance in the calm moment to explain the story about the mysterious new Shredder and the multi-verse in a better, less rushed, way, the new turtles nodding as they followed along in the strange retelling of events.

"So, let me get this straight," Leonardo13 said once Michelangelo07 finished. "There's dozens, possibly hundreds, of lives at stake here in different dimensions, and your best plan to handle the threat is to go on some wild goose chase through every dimension until you find the Shredder responsible?"

Donatello03 shrugged. "Yup. It's the only thing we can do. There's no way to know for sure where Shredder is." Leonardo13 groaned in exasperation but didn't say any more.

"So, are you guys willing to fight Shredder alongside us before he destroys a dimension, and maybe even Turtle Prime?" Leonardo90 asked the 2013 turtles as he finished off his slice.

"Of course we are!" Michelangelo13 cheered. "I can meet all the other Mikeys and we can hang out and eat pizza and finish each other's - "

"- Sentences," Michelangelo87 finished, smirking. He plucked out the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick and opened up a portal to another random dimension. The turtles didn't even look at the image as they all rushed in, in their rush to catch up to the Shredder.

* * *

-1987 dimension-

Splinter87 ran at Shredder at full-speed, his feet flying across the floor. The rat leapt into the air, his eyes level with Shredder's, and flung his feet at the man's chest. Shredder stumbled back and Splinter landed on his back on the floor, quickly leaping up. Splinter was skilled, but it was obvious the years had began to wear on him, slowing him down, stealing his energy. He didn't move in time to get away from the Shredder's grasping hand. The menace pulled him into the air by his ankle, and Splinter could just imagine the menace smirking behind his metal face mask as the rat struggled to free himself.

Shredder began to punch Splinter in the chest, and the rat was left helpless to stop the persistant jabs as pain flared through his body. Any other day, this would have been the part where Splinter gave up, his exhaustion unbearable, but the rat reminded him that this strange new Shredder had killed his pupils, the turtles.

His sons.

New energy flared up inside Splinter, consuming the sadness that had clouded his mind. He would avenge his sons, even if it killed him. They had been what kept him company for so long when the rest of the world had abandoned him. They never gave up on him, and he _never_ gave up on them, training them over the months when they'd gone from hidden freaks to city sensation. Splinter wracked his brain for a way to escape, as the villain began to monologue about avenging someone known as Tang Shen. Splinter smiled lightly when he saw the large, ugly gash running down Shredder's right leg, ripping straight through the cloth, which was covered with dried blood.

Splinter flicked his wrist and three shurikan, sharp and shiny, slid into his furry palm. _A ninja is always prepared. _He threw them precisely at the gash and one became stuck in it, embedding itself deep into the infected injury.

The Shredder reeled back, screaming in agony. Splinter fell to the floor and caught his breath. The villain leaned down and tugged free the throwing star lodged in his deep cut, and immediately threw it towards Splinter.

The rat slid away quickly, throwing out his leg in hopes to trip Shredder. He succeeded and the menace fell to the ground, hard, his heavy metal armor clanking. However, Shredder was quicker to his feet than Splinter, and he began to pursue the rat. Two foot metal spikes slid out from his wrist cuffs, cutting the air, and Splinter backed away from them, into the kitchen of the Lair. His fingers soon found themselves pressed against the wall, his tail snapping against the bricks in a nervous beat as Shredder approached and stood right over him. There was a flash. The two metal spikes were pressed against the wall on either side of Splinter's neck, barely an inch away from his skin. Shredder raised his arms and Splinter rose higher, to eye level.

"Goodbye, Hamato Yoshi." A new metal spike, shaped like an arrow, shiny and unbelievably pointy, slid out from the middle of Shredder's metal cuff. It was barely a centimeter away from Splinter's neck, ready to puncture it. Splinter went cross-eyed trying to keep the point of it in his view. The rat's heart beat fast and the two other metal spikes holding him in the air dug into his chin, drawing blood. "Any last words, freak?"

Splinter drew a breath, his expanding throat barely nicking the new blade. "I die with honor. My sons died with honor. You will not."

"Very well." The blade slid even closer, and Splinter could feel a small break in his skin; he drew his last breath, savoring it. All of the sudden, the ground shook with unexpected force, throwing the world off balance. The table in the kitchen fell over with a crash, pizza sliding off onto the cracking floor. The television in the other room fell straight to the ground with a crash, the glass shattering. Shredder veered to the right, his metal spikes separating from Splinter's neck. The rat slid to the ground and struggled to keep his balance, drawing a huge breath he never imagined taking.

"What is that?" Shredder yelled, his eyes searching the room, and Splinter noticed one side of the Shredder's face was badly burned.

"Do you not recognize the sound of the Technodrome, _Shredder_?" Splinter yelled. He ran towards Oroku Saki, as the shaking ground threatened to knock him down once more. The rat began to kick and punch, shouting out in anger, not planning to give up until this menace paid for the death of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.

Shredder plucked the rat from the ground, stopping the him before he could attack his vulnerable wound again. With Splinter in his hand, not currently a threat, Shredder was free to think. He remembered the Technodrome, the huge flying ship the Kraang had constucted. In his dimension, it was stuck in the bottom of the ocean, but this Technodrome was not. It was moving, causing the ground to shake from its immense size. If this Technodrome was anything like the one Shredder remembered, it had portals. _Portals. _

"I cannot let it get away!" Shredder called out, running out of the Lair in the general direction of the noise, struggling to find his footing on the ground snapping beneath him, threatening to swallow him up. Splinter still flailed in his fist, fighting for freedom.

* * *

-TMNT Anime Universe-** (This is a two-part anime - titled _Myūtanto Tātoruzu: Chōjin Densetsu-hen, _or _Mutant Turtles: Superman Legend_ in English - exclusively released in Japan in 1996. It's really goofy and I recommend you watch it online (with English subtitles) to understand this part of the story better. I just thought it'd be fun to include these turtles. The anime turtles will be referred to with 96 at the end of their names**.**)**

Leonardo13 tripped as he walked through the swirling portal into a new world. He groaned as he pressed himself to his knees, the rest of the turtles stepping out of the portals and converging around him. The blue-masked turtle was shocked to see that the ground was not hard cement, but grass, blowing in the breeze from the portal. He didn't remember a time in his life when he'd actually touched real grass, since his entire fifteen years had been spent in the skyscraper-filled concrete jungle, lit by neon lights and blaring advertisements on Main Street. He stared down at the green plant like it was a mystery to him.

"This isn't New York," Michelangelo90 said, scratching the back of his head in confusion. The portal closed as Raphael87 walked through last. "Hmm...did we take a wrong turn on our way here?" Michelangelo87 rolled his eyes and stuck the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick back into his belt. He walked forward and examined the area, his feet feeling strangely out of place in the soft grass. It was a vast field, with trees lining the edge and beginning a dense forest.

"Don't you recognize this place, Mikey?" Donatello90 said, addressing the orange-masked turtle of his dimension. "This is Japan. We've been here."

"Yeah, but we were in the country hundreds of years ago. How do we know this is Japan?" The rest of the turtles exchanged confused glances, having not heard of the 1990 turtles' time-travelling adventure. Michelangelo90 looked around closer and did find similarities in the environment like those of the Japan he remembered. He shrugged. "Either this is Japan or we travelled to a New York of 1632! Just look at the wide, open spaces!"

"It's Japan," Leonardo90 confirmed briefly, scowling as his orange-masked brother pretended to prance through the bright green field, humming off key. Leonardo90 leaned against an old, withered tree with bunches of pink flowers weighing down the scrangly branches and began to meditate, searching for answers.

Michelangelo87 was far out now, a few dozen yards away from the rest of the turtles, who were still looking around his awe at their new surroundings. Donatello03 watched the short turtle continue to shuffle through the tall grass, and the purple-masked turtle noticed something even farther off in the distance. It was a pile of rubble, a huge conglomeration of gray blocks and blue roof tiles that was a stain against the rest of the beautiful green clearing. He could just imagine it as a once proud Japanese structure, one so tall that it graced the bottom of the clouds. Donatello03 swallowed hard. What had caused the building to collapse?

"Hey, is it just me, or do you guys see those things way out there?" Donatello13 said, pointing off in the direction of the rubble, squinting against the sunlight he was unaccustomed to.

"You mean the ruins?" Donatello03 asked, leaning in a few feet closer as if that would give him a better view.

"No, not exactly that. Don't you see the things_ moving _in the rubble?"

"I do!" Michelangelo03 said. The orange-masked turtle was prancing around the field with Michelangelo90, like the goofball he was. He paused in his movement and shouted out to Michelangelo87. "Hey, watch out!" He began to run towards his dimensional duplicate, ready to protect him in the case something bad happened. It was hard to tell what the things moving in the rubble were.

Seven forms emerged from the dust cloud surrounding the depressing ruins, walking in a straight and rigid line. Even from far away, Raphael90 could see the confusion etched into their expressions as they squinted at the huge group of turtles spread out around the field.

The first form was a young man, lean and muscular, clothed in a simple black ninja outfit, easy to spot in the bright field. The next was a rat, none other than Splinter. The 1987 turtles gasped, shocked at how similar this Splinter looked to their own. The next person was April O'Neil, her red hair shiny and her yellow jumpsuit noticable against the dark rubble behind her. The next four forms were obviously turtles, but something was off about them. The 1990, 2007, 2003, 2013, and 1987 turtles ran up to meet them, able to tell what was different about these four turtles from a close distance.

First off, all of the 1996 turtles were clothed in pants, belts with initials strung around them at the top. Metal clasps stretched from under their left arm to their right shoulder, again displaying their initials. More metal armor ran down their arms and knee-pads, color-coded to match their masks, sat over their pants at the knees. Even under all of the strange clothing, they looked remarkably similar to the 1987 turtles.

Raphael87 stood in front of Raphael96, raising an eye-ridge as he noted just how similar an experience this was as to looking in a mirror. He turned behind him, addressing the rest of the 1987 turtles. "Guys, I think we've had our identity stolen." The new April O'Neil leaned in close with a video camera, recording everything for her news station. Raphael87 pushed the camera away.

"_Anata ga daredearu_," said one the new turtles - Michelangelo.

"Ana - wha?" Michelangelo13 said, scratching his head. "Repeat, please. This time, a little bit slower."

"An..ata...ga...dare...dear...u," stretched out Michelangelo96, leaning in close. Michelangelo13 shook his head, still not understanding.

"_Baka_," said Leonardo96, huffing and folding his arms. The other turtle groups had no idea what he said but it didn't seem to be a compliment.

"Uh, oh," Leonardo03 said, in sudden realization. "We've got a language barrier. These turtles are speaking Japanese!" He slid his hand across his face in exasperation, struggling to remember some basic Japanese Splinter had taught him. The 1996 turtles stared in confusion and anger.

"I know a bit of Japanese!" Donatello90 said, raising his hand eagerly. He stood in front of Leonardo96, who scowled at him. "Uhh..._Chevy Nova. Merīkurisumasu. Watashi wa kirinda." _He had no idea that he had just wished Leonardo96 a merry Christmas and called himself a giraffe.

Leonardo96 stood stock-still, struggling to keep a straight face for several seconds, before he broke out into a huge round of laughter, falling back onto his shell as he hollered, "_Sumāto ichi no tame ni ōku!"_ Donatello90 watched in confusion.

"I'm no expert, but I think he just said 'So much for the smart one'. What you said in Japanese must have been pretty hilarious," Leonardo03 said, smirking a little, watching as his Japanese dimensional duplicate rolled in the grass in laughter, while the other 1996 characters giggled as if to some inside-joke.

Michelangelo96 caught his breath, grinning widely, and spoke. "You silly turtles. We speak English!" He bowed to Michelangelo87, apologizing for having fun with the supposed 'language barrier'. The 1996 turtles didn't seem overly startled by the new turtles, but they probably dealt with stranger stuff everyday.

"I'd like to know why we come to Japan to fight the Shredder and then once we defeat him, we find this huge crowd of more mutant turtles!" Donatello96 said, turning to the man clothed in black on his right. "Do you know what's going on, Kinzo-san?" The man merely shook his head, looking a little shy as April O'Neil pressed her camera in for a close-up.

"Smile!" she encouraged him. She couldn't tell if he actually did, as most of his face was covered by his ninja mask.

"All right, we've wasted enough time here," Donatello07 said, as Michelangelo90 once again began to prance around the field, this time with all the rest of the orange-masked turtles, humming loudly over Donatello's words. Donatello07 turned to Donatello96. "There is a Shredder threatening the lives of all of us. Are you and your brothers willing to help us defeat him?"

"If we get pizza!" Michelangelo96 called out. "We're starving!"

Leonardo96 leaned in on the conversation, feeling as leader he should have some say in this. "Do you really think you guys can't handle your own Shredder? We just fought a huge Metal Devil Shredder - just the four of us and Kinzo-san!"

Michelangelo07 stopped dancing and stared at Leonardo96, wondering if heard him right. "Metal Devil Shredder? That sounds like a wicked cool video game boss!"

Leonardo96 folded his arms in contempt. "Yes. Metal Devil Shredder. We beat him, Bebop, and Rocksteady up really well and then he swore at us and ran away through a portal."

"Leo-san," Donatello96 said, addressing his angry brother. "I think we should help them. They should explain to us what is going on and then we should go fight this Shredder. Lives are at stake, he said. And I'd like to know what's going on."

"I agree," Splinter96 said. "You cannot deny the voice of reason, Leo-san."

Leonardo96 huffed. "Fine..._Kore wa yoi yoi." _

Michelangelo13 pushed Donatello07 away to stand in front of the 1996 turtles. It was his turn to tell the story, since most of the Michelangelos had already had their chance to. "All right. Once upon a time..." Raphael90 was quick to hit him over the head so Michelangelo13 began the story again, reminded of how serious the situation was and that now was not good for time-wasting jokes.

* * *

**Forgive my Japanese if it's bad. Google Translate isn't too reliable. **

**In case you didn't know, the rest of the turtles joined the anime turtles directly after the events of the second anime episode. The collapsed building mentioned in the chapter fell down at the very end of the episode. **

**I only recently watched the anime episodes a few days ago, to get a feel for these turtles so I could incorporate them into the story. The two episodes were really just big commercials for Japan-exclusive TMNT toys but they are pretty good for what they are. I thought it funny that this anime was very similar to the 1987 cartoon but the characters swore a lot, especially Shredder. The anime turtles may not be very popular or recent iteration but I find they are a nice addition to the story, being so different from the rest of the versions. **


	6. Chapter 6: Missing Pieces

-1987 universe-

Shredder87 angrily paced back and forth through the Technodrome, his mouth pulled into a deep frown behind his metal mask. His armor clanked with each step, his shiny silver helmet glinting in the darkness of the shadows. His purple cape ruffled with his every move, the only sound in the entire Technodrome. Five robots, known as Foot Soldiers, stood behind him in a silent manner. The Foot Soldiers had been serving Oroku Saki - the Shredder - for years, but just a month ago they had received a major update. Androids that had once been cartoony, clumsy devices clothed in black and violet had become deadly assassins of red and black. Dangerous and relentless.

However, they were not the only change that had come to Oroku Saki's life just a month ago, from the day that changed everything. The Utrom Shredder had taken the liberty to completely redesign the Technodrome. He had made it a flying ship, rather than a grounded "golfball on wheels" - as some chose to call it. The technology inside was greatly improved, and a deadly laser was installed on the outside. After Utrom Shredder had died, Shredder87 had regained control over the Technodrome, and things were slowly becoming the same as they once were. Settling back into a routine. He'd even gotten back to fighting the turtles again, and had a chance to use his new 'giggle ray'.

Shredder87 continued to pace, but the silence was interrupted by a shrill scream. The menace looked up to see April O'Neil, ropes strung tight around her yellow jumpsuit, suspended from the ceiling. A fall from that height would kill her. She had been hanging there for a few hours, after Bebop and Rocksteady had captured her, but had woken up about forty-five minutes ago. Usually the turtles would have come to rescue her by now. _Where are those foolish freaks? _April had called them through the Turtle Communicator in a plea for help but there had been no answer, only static. The turtles rescued her almost daily. What was preventing them from doing so now?

"Where are those wretched reptiles?" Shredder87 growled. He slammed his armored fists on the computer controls and the Foot soldiers recoiled, almost in fear.

"Gee, we don't know, boss," replied Bebop, leaning against the giant monitor. He snorted through his warthog nose, brushing his purple mohawk nervously. It was unusual for the turtles to take hours to come to the rescue and his small brain didn't understand why they were there yet, either. "Why's ya don't just drop her down already?" Rocksteady, beside Bebop, nodded in agreement.

Shredder flipped around to face the two mutants. "You two, go back to work outside the Technodrome! It's taken us weeks to put those wheels back on the Technodrome after those changes that moronic Utrom Shredder did to it! Making this thing fly rather than drive! Go make sure the the Foot Soldiers are doing a good job of re-installing the wheels!" The two mutants ran away quickly as Shredder continued to rant, waving his spiky fists in anger.

Krang stepped out of the corner, his robot body taking large steps. Inside the body's chest, Krang - a little brain-like blob - writhed as he said,"Shredder! You imbecile, the turtles are obviously not coming. Take care of this pesky miss O'Neil once and for all while we have the chance. She is always meddling in our business!" His words were guttural and peppered with odd burps and gargles.

Shredder shook his head. "She is bait. We captured her to lure the turtles here. Nothing is more important than - "

"Your revenge," Krang finished with a bored eye roll. Revenge was all that Shredder spoke of, all that filled his mind. "I _know! _Revenge, revenge. All I hear of every day!" The two began to bicker, throwing words at each other in their rising anger.

"You will never get away with this!" April O'Neil shouted, almost on cue. She fought against her bonds, but freeing herself would do no good, only allow her to fall to the distant ground. "Turtles! Help!"

"Another plan failed, Shredder!" Krang scolded as the metal-covered menace swung at him with pure rage. So many failed schemes, humiliating losses. He'd thought after that encounter with Utrom Shredder things would be different, that somehow he'd finally win a battle. As his losses piled up over the month, he'd gotten angrier and angrier.

"We are not so different, you and I..." said a voice. It was eerie and seemed to eminate from the Technodrome walls themselves, not coming from one certain place. Gravelly and deep. Shredder87 halted his attack on Kraang and spun around, the rustling of his long purple cape louder than the next words.

"Anger is what drives us. A thirst for revenge."

Shredder87 turned to see a tall, muscular form taking up most of the doorway. The five Foot Soldier robots lay at his feet, torn apart, and Shredder87 looked down to see one of their heads rolling towards him. The man who'd done the damage didn't budge from the doorway. The first thing Shredder87 noticed about this man was the metal plating running down his body, spikes glinting in the shadows. A helmet large and sharp. Then Shredder87 noticed the man's semi-burnt face and knew there must be a terrible story behind it.

"How long have you been here?" Shredder87 shouted, clenching his fists. This Shredder copy was taller than him, bulkier than him, but he would fight him if he had to. Never again would another Shredder humilate him like Utrom Shredder had.

"Long enough to understand that you could prove a useful ally," the new Shredder said, calmly. His voice was like an echo, reverberating behind the metal mask. "My goal is not different than yours."

"Not another stupid Shredder!" Krang complained, but as Shredder12 looked at him with a menacing glare, the alien said no more. A hint of recognition flashed across Shredder12's face; Krang reminded him of something.

"What is going on here?" April said shrilly. "Two Shredders! What a story!"

"What do you want?" Shredder87 asked, ignoring April.

"I've already told you," Shredder12 said, "Revenge. Every Ninja Turtle shall fall to me." He walked up to the monitors and began examining the buttons, as if he planned to use them. Shredder87 butted in between the man and the machine, looking up into the man's face.

"I'm not going to help you," Shredder87 said, his voice authoritive, daring Shredder12 to fight. "No longer do I trust other _infernal_e Shredders." This new Shredder was obviously one from another dimension, out to kill turtles that were other Shredders' problems to deal with. This could turn out worse than the fiasco with Utrom Shredder. Shredder87 knew killing the Turtle Primes, which this Shredder was obviously planning to do, would kill everyone else as a result. "Fight your own battles."

"Very well." Shredder12 turned and looked towards the doorway. Suddenly, the doors swung open and in strode Bebop and Rocksteady, a considerably weak-looking Splinter87 fighting their grasp. Shredder12 turned to his counterpart and said. "You may choose to oppose me, but your Technodrome and everything in it is now under my command."

There was a flash and Shredder87 felt a hard blow to his stomach, rippling through his body in a shockwave. He flew backwards, skidding to a stop against the wall with his purple cape torn by his metal blades and all the pride and air in him knocked free. "Don't do it..." _Don't kill the turtles, or we'll all die as well_. His eyes fell shut, and the last thing he saw was Shredder12 slamming his fist down on a button, and soon the monitor displayed a large purple portal ripping open outside the Technodrome, swirling with energy.

A few moments later, Shredder12 stood over his dimensional counterpart, contemplating killing him while he was unconcscious. The purple light of the portal outside beckoned to him as he thought. Shredder decided against killing Shredder87; even a man who opposed him could come in handy later. There was a constant ring of screaming from the girl hanging from the ceiling, but Shredder had no idea who she was and did not intend to waste time killing her. He turned to Bebop and Rocksteady, seeing them as versions of Dogpound and Fishface, mutants to boss around. Splinter87 was strung between them, barely conscious.

"I will kill you," Shredder12 said, looking down in hatred at the pathetic rat. "But not now. You will serve a purpose, give me an advantage. Once the turtles see you die in front of them, they will be greatly weakened without even receiving a blow. They _will_ fall to me, but you won't be there to see it." This was how Shredder would fight a group that so greatly outnumbered him. And it was Shredder's rambling speech that made Splinter realize that maybe his sons weren't really dead. If Shredder12 was ruthless enough to lie about death, something that Shredder87 never would have done, why wouldn't he do so to weaken Splinter87 in a fight?

Shredder12 turned and smiled up at the monitor, the huge portal and it's gleaming purple light dashing across his metal armor. He didn't need the Kraang - he could find the turtles on his own. And if he happened to run into the Turtle Primes, all the better.

* * *

-IDW universe- (**Currently, the IDW publishing company is running a series of TMNT comic books. They are very good, but I have only had the luck to read the first five issues, so it is set after issue #5 in this story. The IDW turtles will referred to as "Leo C" or "Mikey C" - C standing for "comic"...I think I'm horribly underexperienced with the IDW turtles to get them completely right, so if you're a fan of them I'm sorry about that.)**

Mikey C paced around the Lair, one of his hands occupied rubbing the back of his head nervously as the other flipped through the pages of an outdated comic book, his large white eyes not taking in anything of it. His mind was filled for once, and not with video games or superheroes. His feet plodded in a rhythm across the floor, in a beat with the clang of Raphael's new sai as he tested the weapons out for the first time.

Three red masks lay on the floor, Splinter eyeing them with fondness. Mikey C uncormfortably felt the orange mask that now framed his eyes, and even though it was the same shape, covering the same space on his face, it felt alien to him. Like the color of the mask made any difference to how it felt. He'd only gotten the new mask a few moments ago, while Leonardo had received blue, and Donatello purple. It had been a gift to celebrate the return of Raphael to the family; in turn the last turtle with a red mask had gotten the sai.

The turtles had found Raphael only a few days ago, and though they didn't have much memory of him in their short past - just Splinter's stories - they were now a tight family. Training together, "fine-tuning" the skills they had no recollection of learning. The three turtles had worn masks of Raphael's favorite color for the near eighteen months they'd searched for him, their eighteen months as mutant turtles.

Raphael C spun his sai in circles on his palms, making it look no easier than walking. The flashing beauty of the silver weapons was eye-catching. "These are amazing...Thank you, Master Splinter." The rat nodded happily.

Donatello still sat next to Splinter, a remnant of the circle of turtles there had been only minutes ago when Splinter had told them the full story of their origin and the stories that intertwined with it. Donatello had so many questions, and Spllinter only had so many answers.

"Where is Oroku Saki _now_?" Donatello asked, struggling to squeeze more answers out of his sensei. One thing Donatello hated was unsolved problems, ones that just sat there without a way to fix it like puzzles with missing pieces.

"I do not know more than I have told you," Splinter said,"The story ends with the death of Hamato Yoshi and his four boys. We have yet to find all the answers to our own existence."

A distance away, in the grimy tunnels of the sewers, a great swirling vortex appeared out of nowhere. A humongous group of turtles, looking all so different, yet all so the same, strode out. Donatello07 came out first, followed by his brother Michelangelo07. They were still aching from the pain of seeing Raphael07 so hurt - not knowing if he was alive - but didn't show any emotion, ready to fight the Shredder that did it.

The 1996 anime turtles followed suit, walking like soldiers in all their gear (but an odd lack of the signature ninja weapons all the other turtles had) as they spoke in rushed Japanese to each other. The other turtle groups hoped they weren't saying rude things in Japanese, because none of them were fluent enough to follow.

1990 turtles came next, and Michelangelo90 looked around at the sewers and the mix of turtles standing around in the tunnel. "...I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." Michelangelo90 had a knack for doing impressions and quoting movies, but Raphael90 obviously wasn't in the mood for it, as he hit Michelangelo90 over the head. Michelangelo07, a few feet away, said "Ow" at the same time as Michelangelo90 and the two stared at each other as they rubbed the back of their heads.

Next came a mix of the 1987 and 2013 turtles through the portal, laughing as Donatello87 and Donatello13 argued over some small scientific detail. It was so odd that two turtles so much alike couldn't get along.

"Come on," Donatello87 said,"You should know that once you hack into the computer you can't program it to - "

"Yes, _you can_," Donatello13 interjected. He was tall - able to tower over Donatello87 - but he hunched forward so that his height wasn't too noticable. He was irritated by Donatello87 and his incorrect arguments. "I've done it before. Use the basic scrambled algorithms and then you just find the ECM data screen - "

"Fight, fight, fight!" yelled the rest of the 1987 turtles, giggling. Leonardo03 turned around and shushed everyone. They all immediately stilled, staring at him for more directions. Leonardo03 had the seriousness and calmness of a perfect leader, so much that even the other Leonardos would follow his directions.

"Do you hear that?" Leonardo03 said, his eyes narrowing as he struggled to pick up the noise again. The faint sound of metal meeting metal, jeers and loud talking. The sound that felt all to familiar - sparring, a way of ninja practice. "...I don't think we're all that far away from the turtles of this dimension."

They walked for a while, following the noises that grew steadily louder. All the turtles had reassembled in their original groups, the brothers they trusted the most by their sides. Questions burned in their minds, along with startling thoughts about Shredder. Why were they feeling pain when other turtles were hurt? Where was Shredder? The questions consumed all their other thoughts, but it was a long time until someone finally spoke.

"I think I may have something say about the pain issues," Donatello87 said uncomfortably, eyeing Donatello13, daring him to interrupt. "There are many other dimensions of turtles we haven't met. They get hurt, I'm sure, but never have we felt any pain of theirs." He paused, looking up to see everyone else nodding along with him. "...And we hadn't started feeling the pain until yesterday when the two dimensions that had fought Utrom Shredder, which includes mine, had met again. But then again, neither of those two dimensions had gotten hurt in the month since the Utrom Shredder fight. When had we begun to synonymously feel the same pain?"

Donatello03 nodded and slowed up to walk next to Donatello87, and was the only turtle to break the tight dimensional formations. "Good question. Anyone have the answer?" He smiled at Donatello87 and they remembered that they were in this together, as friends and brothers.

Donatello13 took a breath. He looked at Donatello87, and for once his eyes didn't burn with hatred, but weren't exactly filled with trust or friendliness, either, like Donatello03's. There was a truce between the two 1987 and 2013 turtles, one founded on the fear they shared - Shredder being victorious - for now. "The tall Mikey over there" - he gestured to Michelangelo07, who immediately stopped making funny faces with Michelangelo87 as eyes turned to him - "told my brothers and I in his explanation that during a fight with Shredder his brother Raphael had gotten hurt real bad, and all the other Raphaels in that dimension had felt some sort of pain. We share pain with you guys now that we've met, but before we met, the Raphael of my dimension showed no sign that he was hurting. The hurt Raphael's injury had no effect on my brother then, but I'm sure it would now, after our dimensions have met."

"Maybe it's just because I don't feel pain, period," Raphael13 suggested, "I just make it." Leonardo96 answered the statement by kicking Raphael90 on the leg, causing the other Raphaels, including Raphael13, to exclaim in pain.

"Uh-oh...Leo just awoke the beasts..." Michelangelo90 said as the Raphaels roared in anger and tore down the tunnel after Leonardo96. The anime turtle shouted out in Japanese as he ran, barely feet ahead of Raphael03.

"_Gomen'nasai, Gomen'nasai, Gomen'nasai!" _

"I think that means 'I'm sorry' or 'You're an idiot'," Donatello90 said, chuckling as he watched Leonardo96 speed around the bend in the tunnel, huffing and puffing in exaggerated exhaustion like a cartoon character.

"Donnie, you're an idiot and that little sucker better be sorry!" Raphael90 shouted, the last to turn the corner in pursuit of Leonardo96. The Raphaels hadn't been kicked that hard, but the red-masked turtles loved any excuse to fight.

"Well, at least the Raphaels are bonding," Leonardo87 said shrugging. "I just hope that Leo lives through it." He knew the Raphaels wouldn't kill, but Leonardo96 hadn't yet shown any ninja abilities, so hopefully he could defend himself. What would happen to the others Leonardos if one of them died? It was a question Leonardo87 didn't dare linger on.

Not so far away, there was the sound of startled screams from unfamiliar voices, and a high-pitched shout of "_Watashi ni kigai o kuwaenai" _from Leonardo96, accompanied by the deep thuds of him getting dog-piled.

"What is going on?" one of the new voices shouted.

The turtles remaining in the tunnels, deserted by Leonardo96 and the Raphaels, exchanged worried glances. "Think we've made a good first impression in this dimension, having the Raphaels pile on little Leo in their lair?" Donatello03 said, but no one bothered answering as they rushed forward.

They came into the Lair, and the first thing they noticed was the pile of five Raphaels, hopelessly outnumbering Leonardo96, all pinning him down. They didn't even seem to notice they were in the lair of this dimension, because Leonardo96 was too scared and his view was blocked and the Raphaels were consumed by anger. Raphael03 had Leonardo96's arm twisted tightly behind his back, shouting "Say it! Say it!" The other Leonardos felt a dull ache, a hint of Leonardo96's pain.

"Raph! Get up!" Leonardo03 reprimanded. Raphael03 looked up and was surprised to see the four new turtles and Splinter staring at him dumb-founded. He then held up one finger, gesturing 'just a minute'. He increased the pressure on Leonardo96's arm. "Say it!" Apparently revenge was more important than saving the dimensions.

Leonardo03 and the other blue-masked turtles, feeling responsible for cleaning up the mess, began to tug the Raphaels off of their poor dimensional duplicate, but not before Leonardo96 finally said whatever Raphael03 had wanted him to say, gritting his teeth against the pain of his twisted arm.

"Raphael is better than me in every single way! He is all-powerful and amazing! I am a dirt clod beneath his feet! _...Happy_?"

"Extremely," Raphael90 said as Leonardo03 pulled him up. Leonardo96 stood up and looked down at the floor, ashamed at his weakness. How could he consider himself a ninja?

The Splinter in the lair cleared his throat and all turtles turned to look at him. Even if he wasn't their sensei, he felt familiar to all of them, the tug of belonging deep inside telling them they belonged here. The rat was short and gray, with a cane and robe, his black eyes welcoming and warm but there was the definite ability to kill in him. He walked up to the Raphaels, being held back by the Leonardos as if they would attack again. Raphael87 was the only one free, and had been the one least involved with the take-down, having found it of a sort of game until it got truly serious.

"My sons of the red masks, anger is what defines you. You let it overtake you, turn you into a monster. Do not follow the path a short temper gives you; it is not a good ally in life."

"Wait?" Donatello90 said, "You're not confused or frightened? Forgive my asking, but your first instinct is to give the Raphaels advice? Isn't this all strange to you?"

The rat smiled, his eyes beckoning him, caring about him. "Of course this is strange to me, but I have grown quite used to strange. You all look like my sons, and I love my sons. Now, but if you all are a threat, I warn you. My sons and I are well-trained ninja." The identical turtles behind him, separated only by their mask colors, frowned and raised their weapons.

"Wait!" Leonardo13 walked in front of the group, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. He could remember, barely an hour or so ago when he had been as distrusting as these turtles were. He felt he could best explain the situation to them. "We aren't looking to fight. We need you guys. There's someone out there who is a threat to us all. If we don't fight him, nothing matters anymore, because we'll be dead. He is the Shredder."

"So...he is back," Splinter said. "The very man that killed Hamato Yoshi and his four sons."

The other turtles' eyes widened, confused by this bit of information. Donatello03 came forward. "You see, Splinter, it's a little more complex than that. This is not the Shredder you know, but we need to you to help us fight him anyway."

Michelangelo07 said solemnly,"We need all the help we can get." He remembered what Shredder had done to his his brother, Raphael. Possibly killed him.

Splinter saw the painful emotion on Michelangelo07's face and finally understood. He turned to his sons. "I let you choose. Shall you help them?"

The answer was a loud chorus of "yes". Michelangelo87 pulled out the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick, saying, "We'll explain what's going on a little bit more while we're on the go," but before he could turn the portal on Raph C spoke up. "You guys said you needed all the help you can get, right? Well, I know someone who could come with us."

Raphael03 smiled, knowing just what Raph C meant. "Don't say anymore. Just go get Casey Jones." Raph C ran off down the tunnels, promising to be gone no longer than a few minutes. Casey didn't live far away, and if the lives of countless turtles depended on one fight, Raphael knew his friend would be an important asset.

Mikey C approached Michelangelo87 as the turtles waited. "Hi." He felt awkward around a turtle that shared his name, his mask, his family. "So, are you really exactly like me, you know?"

"Do you like comics, skateboarding, and pizza?"

"Yeah!"

"Then I think we'll get along just fine, compadre." He smiled at Mikey C, and they felt connected, as friends. Family. Mikey C knew he was just kidding about the comics, skateboarding, and pizza, because there was so much more to them than that.

* * *

-2012 dimension-

Karai eyes were narrowed, her mouth forming a deep frown as she stomped around the room in a stressed pace. Her finger ran down the dull side of the small blade tucked into her belt, and the Kraang knew to stay away from her. Every minute or so, Karai peered up at the monitor. In the corner was a minute image of her father driving some odd machine, but the Kraang didn't give it much attention - Shredder was nearly useless to them now. Most of the screen was taken up by a progress bar, which to Karai seemed to be stuck on "five percent" for nearly an hour. She felt like throwing her blade at the monitor in sheer anger and impatience, destroy just to vent herself.

The progress bar was there to monitor how much closer the Kraang were getting to finding 'Turtle Prime' - the source of all turtle life - using the source DNA they'd drawn from the turtles of this dimension. Now that the 2012 turtles were back on her mind, Karai felt a fire of emotion rise up inside her. She regretted letting the turtles go in a moment of weakness. She was going to destroy them anyway and the process of finding Turtle Prime would probably be going much faster if more Source DNA had been drawn. That stupid Leonardo, seeing him dying before her eyes had destroyed her better judgment.

_Why do I want to destroy the turtles so badly? _Karai thought. _I'm not so much like Shredder that I must kill everyone even connected with Tang Shen's murder; I should only want to kill Splinter - the one man who murdered my mother. Is this all just to please my father? _

Karai felt all the confusion inside herself well up, along with her remorse of having lost her mother, but refused to cry. Instead she shouted at the Kraang. "Hurry up, you idiots!" She walked into the empty hallway to recompose her self, take a deep breath, but soon found herself slumped against the wall, staring into her reflection on her small sword. Her father had once told her how much she looked like Tang Shen, her mother, and Karai wondered if that was true. That behind all the make-up, and the seriousness, and her punk hairstyle, that she was one and the same with the mother she never knew. If they shared the same carefree smile Karai remembered from the pictures - Karai had never smiled long enough to know.

When she looked back up from her reflection, staring at the white walls with streaks of pink, Karai had renewed determination to find Turtle Prime. Anything to please her father and heal the wound inside her.

_Splinter - and his legacy - shall pay._

She strode back into the main room and was pleased to see that the mass of Kraang had followed her instructions and hurried up. The monitor now read "12 percent". She'd be travelling to Turtle Prime in no time - with a few Kraang droids by her side to ensure the turtles would _fall._

* * *

-2007 dimension-

Raphael07 groaned as he lay on the old orange couch in the lair, Leonardo wrapping a linen bandage tight around his wounded leg. Splinter was watching with sad eyes. As soon as Leonardo tied the bandage around the bleeding skin, the white linen began to stain red. Raphael lay on the beaten-up orange couch, absent-mindedly watching the soap opera Splinter had been engrossed in before Leonardo had rushed in with his injured brother. Raphael was only half-conscious, fighting to keep his eyes open. He felt like he'd been run over by a bulldozer, with bruises building up all over his body, and his open wound still bleeding heavily.

"Leonardo," Splinter said once Leonardo finished with the bandage, "Where are your brothers?"

The blue-masked turtle hesitated for a moment, looking down at Raphael, who was pretending to be amazed by the soap opera and not at all bothered by the pain of a battle wound. "Donnie and Mikey, they ran off with the people who caused this." Leonardo pointed down at the bleeding leg propped up on the scarred coffee table.

"Whatever for, my son?" Splinter took a step towards Raphael, his cane tapping lightly on the cold ground. He graced a furry hand over Raphael's head, worry etched into his expression.

"The Shred - man who hurt Raphael," Leonardo said, stopping himself from saying Shredder, not wanting to tell his father the whole confusing story. "He was lead to me and my brothers by some new..._people_ that we had just met, I believe." Leonardo was speaking about the large group of turtles who'd come to his dimension just before the Shredder. The ones he believed had somehow caused Raphael's injury. "When the man ran away, the others followed him, including Donnie and Mikey, to go fight. I came here to take care of Raphael."

"It is wise of you to help your brother in need, Leonardo, but why are you not going off to fight the man who did this? I believe Mikey and Donnie made the right decision to fight someone so villainous. If those others you met were fighting him, I assure you they were on your side. 'The enemy of my enemy is my - "

"Friend, I know," Leonardo finished, shrugging. He plopped down on the couch next to Raphael and put his face in his hands. "I don't know what to do, sensei...It's all so confusing. But I don't trust the _others_ that ran off with Donnie and Mikey. Not one bit."

Raphael groaned. "Leo...they didn't cause my injury..."

"I know...I just can't see myself trusting them and fighting alongside them. They didn't care when you got hurt, Raph. Not at all. I hope Mikey and Donnie come back, because we have no way to get to them."

Splinter sighed. "Our family is broken again."

* * *

-1984 dimension- Turtle Prime

A crescent moon shone down on the vast city of New York, it's powerful white light unable to penetrate the darkest alleys, the nooks and crannies of the city, where the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hid. It was midnight, but the turtles weren't at all tired as they knocked out criminals, using darkness as their ally. Leonardo narrated everything under his breath, a habit he had that even he didn't know the purpose of.

The city was black and white, and everything was silent, like an old movie. The turtles were short, had pale gray skin, blindingly white eyes, and dark gray masks that looked like they would have been red if the world was colored. These creatures had only ever known black and white, good and evil - that is, until they had met their dimensional duplicates a month ago. That had changed their lives.

The four brothers had tried to forget the event, but it was no use. Though they realized they had grown close to their duplicates in the short time they'd been together. Almost. They had killed Utrom Shredder, but power that large never really perishes.

Leonardo scaled the side of a building in the blink of eye, his brothers following, finding hand and footholds in the cracks on the brick or the sills of windows. Raphael lagged behind the others, groaning and fighting pain. Yesterday something had happened to him, he'd gotten hurt without touching anything. His leg felt like an invisible bleeding wound; the pain was there, but nothing to show for it. He grit his teeth and clambered over the side onto the roof, not letting his brothers see how bad a condition he was in.

The others had felt injured over the past day or so, as well, but not as much as Raphael. Flashes of pain that usually faded in a matter of minutes. Donatello was looking for an explanation, taking his brothers' blood samples to study and using all his resources, but had so far come up short. They'd gone on patrol this night, but knew it could be cut short any minute when the mysterious force could attack again.

Upon a rooftop, they watched over their city proudly, mask ends flapping in the light breeze. Silent, unknown protectors. The flecks of twinkling stars reflected off the shiny surface of Raphael's sai and Leonardo's katanas. Raphael felt a pang of sudden pain in his other leg - like he'd been kicked - causing him to swear. "When will this end?"

Donatello sighed. He rarely came across a problem he couldn't solve; he hated issues with no solution in sight. Michelangelo looked over to him, saying something on his mind. "Do you think it has to do with the other turtles we met? My idea: we're all sort of like voodoo dolls to each other and when one feels pain, the others do too."

Donatello shook his head. "That's a dumb idea. Too many holes."

"Come on, you always underestimate me! You just think the idea is stupid because it was me that said it." He swore and stomped up to Donatello, nunchaku gripped tightly in his hands.

Donatello started to protest, but Leonardo hushed them. They quieted, only to watch Leonardo turn back around and stare out at the city once again. Beautiful white stars and the crescent moon in the tumultuous black space did nothing to romanticize the sheer ugliness of most of New York. Destruction left over from the Technodrome's attack, done four weeks ago, not yet fixed. Buildings with portions cut clean off, some just piles of dust, strewn upon cracked streets. People had died, not many, but still too many. Leonardo took a breath, remembering how much he loved this place, the only home he had every known. When the city was damaged, it felt like he was too.

"Donatello, I think Michelangelo is right, or is on to something. But I have a feeling we'll get our full answers soon enough. You can't have a battle as big and world-shattering as the one that happened a month ago without some repercussions."

Raphael smiled. Under his breath, Leonardo finished his strange narration for the night. "...And we finished our patrol with more questions than Purple Dragons we've crushed. No matter, the answers will come soon enough."

* * *

**Do you have a better idea for what to call the IDW turtles, rather than Raph C or Leo C? I'm not particularly liking the names but they were the best ones I had. **

**The version of TMNT that first got me interested in the turtles was the 2012 show, so, I admit, I am a new fan. When I think of TMNT, I imagine the turtles as they are shown in the 2012 show, while some people might be fonder towards the classic cartoon or the comics. Before seeing "Never Say Xever" (my first episode) I had hardly ever heard of the Ninja Turtles. That's hard to imagine now, as I am a huge fan. This one show, my favorite thing to watch, got me into everything else TMNT-related, but no matter how much I love everything else, I'll always love this show the most. I just love the story, the humor, the characters and their designs, and the way the show brings in the best from all the other iterations before it. I do admit, the series has its limits and has a few minor issues, but it is were the 2012 show is weak that other iterations are strong. That is what I love so much about a franchise that has changed so much - no one origin story is the "right" one, because it changes every time, and that applies to a few other constants in the franchise. Every version is its own thing and not held back by the others. My favorite characters in the 2012 show may be Donatello and Leonardo, but that is different for the other versions. 1987 cartoon, my favorite is Raphael - 1990 movies, it's Michelangelo. **


	7. Chapter 7: Shifted Loyalties

**Sorry such a short chapter took so long. I've been so busy lately!**

* * *

Raph C and his brothers stood stock still, forming a straight and rigid line. They were the same height, same shade of green, and the only thing to tell them apart were their masks and signature weapons. Their eyes were narrowed in forced determination as the crowd of other turtles surrounded them, flipping through dimensions on the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick as casually as if they were channel surfing.

"No, we've been to that dimension already..." Raphael87 drolled, "Keep moving...Oh! Oh! Go back!...Nope, we've been there..."

Casey Jones stood beside his new best friend, Raph C, completely decked out in his vigilante gear. A golf bag full of sports gear-turned-weapons slung loosely on his back and a white hockey mask hiding his face. He'd been in the lair for several minutes now, and Raph C had filled him in on what was going on, while the other turtles made assumptions as to what dimension Shredder was in and flipped through them on the Portal Stick. They'd been doing so for some time now and it was beginning to get tedious.

Casey leaned over and said to Raphael,"You'd think for a mission as important as this, they'd be a bit more organized." Raph C smirked, just a little bit nervous. If the entire Multi-verse depended on the success of this ragtag group of turtles, what chance did they have of surviving? This group was pathetic.

Leonardo90 had overheard Casey Jones and flipped around, frowning angrily. "Hey, some of us haven't slept in over twenty-four hours. Forgive us if we're a _little unfocused_." He wanted to continue lecturing Casey Jones, but decided to go pull two fighting Raphaels off of each other instead.

A distance away, Raphael87 shouted "No! Go back!", waving his hands as his brother Michelangelo87 flipped through the images of dimensions on the Portal Stick. The images slowly splayed out against the brick wall, but changed so quickly they barely even had time to materialize."Yeah, that dimension! It looks important!"

"You could have told me that the first time we saw this dimension!" Michelangelo87 growled, more than a little irritated. The stress of the mission and the lack of sleep was getting to everyone. Leonardo03 turned to the IDW turtles and smiled welcomingly, hoping these turtles were still on board with fighting Shredder after seeing how unsystematic this group was. They needed all the help they could get if they were going to face the Shredder.

"I think we're ready to go. Are you guys?"

"I'm _pretty _sure we were ten minutes ago," Leo C said, folding his arms in contempt. He shoved past Leonardo03 and strolled straight through the portal, his brothers following in an orderly line, Casey Jones tagging along behind, looking oddly out of place in a crowd full of turtles.

"Hot-heads," Raphael13 said, rolling his eyes. Leonardo87 slid a hand down his own face after hearing that and muttered "Speak for yourself", which caused Raphael13 to flip around and push him to the ground. Raphael13 stood over him and smirked proudly, and Leonardo87 stared back up at him in anger.

Donatello96 turned to look at Splinter, the short gray rat that belonged to this dimension. "Master Splinter, are you coming along?"

Splinter looked around the room, taking in everything that was going on. Donatello13 and Donatello87 eyeing each other with unreasonable hatred, a group of Raphaels cracking their knuckles as they stared down a terrified Leonardo96, and Michelangelo87 bickering with Michelangelo90 about who got to hold the Trans-dimensional Portal Stick and what type of pizza was better. This was not a team, and no where near a family. All of these turtles were tied together by a common goal, but malice and bickering thrived within the group. They all looked at what was different about themselves, and not what was the same, which caused all of the fighting. If this strange collection of Raphaels, Leonardos, Donatellos, and Michelangelos were going to defeat the Shredder, they needed to learn to work as one.

Splinter turned back to Donatello96. "I agree with your earlier statement. You do need all the help you can get." And with that, he strode through the portal side-by-side with the odd purple-masked turtle. Splinter knew that these turtles were all the same deep within and they only had to realize that to become a fully-functioning team. He had to bring them together, and quickly.

The multi-verse was tied together, and each turtle had a small part of Turtle Prime inside them: source DNA. They had yet to realize how much that meant.

* * *

-**1989 arcade game**- (arcade turtles will be referred to as Leonardo89, Raphael89, and so on).

The Technodrome rumbled, knocking everyone inside but Shredder12 to lose their balance. April O'Neil swayed dangerously, strung from the ceiling by a thick rope. Bebop and Rocksteady tightened their grip on Splinter87, who had tried to make a mad dash for freedom.

"We're in a new dimension!" Shredder12 yelled victoriously. His eyes drifted over to the unconscious Shredder87, lying motionless on the floor like a pathetic rag doll. _How dare he try to defy me_, Shredder12 thought. Well, he didn't need that fool to help him - he'd take down the multi-verse on his _own._

Shredder12 peered at the monitor, soaking up the new New York city. He was still underground, where the Technodrome travelled, but the monitor displayed the surface above. At first, Shredder was very confused by what he saw. New York looked basically the same, but a little rough, blurry, a bit..._pixellated_, as if it had come from one of the old video games Karai had enjoyed when she was younger. A tall building was on fire, burning bright yellow and red. Four shady forms leapt effortlessly across the street onto the roof of the building , rushing inside. Shredder could tell they were the turtles, even from as far away as he was. He had been planning to use this new Technodrome he had just acquired in order to destroy the turtles, but that would be impossible if they were twenty floors up on a crumbling building.

"Gee, boss, what'cha gonna do now?" snorted Rocksteady.

Shredder flipped around the look at the strange rhinoceros mutant who had spoken, sizing him up. This mutant toted a large machine gun, with bullets strung over both his shoulders. He was large and muscular, with a hard horn, making him easily intimidating. Shredder smiled, "You, come into the building with me. It turns out we'll have to take down the turtles one-on-one." The Shredder was glad to have some new minions to help him, because he was wounded from his last big fight and he had new idea how powerful the turtles of this dimension were.

"Hey, you moron!" said Krang, following behind Shredder on the heels. "I'm still here! Don't think you can take over _my_ Technodrome and do whatever you wish with it!"

Shredder flipped around, just a silver blur, and in an instant he had pulled Krang straight from his body and had kicked the robotic shell to the ground, dangling Krang in the air. He leaned in close to the alien's terrified face and growled, "Never speak to me that way again, you insolent slug." He dropped Krang to the floor, but continued to stare at him just a moment longer, pondering something, but what it was, he didn't say. He then turned and strode out of the room with Rocksteady, commanding Bebop to keep a tight grip on Splinter while he was gone. The doors closed tight and all that was left in the Technodrome's monitor room was a pile of defeated Foot Soldiers, Krang, Bebop, Splinter, and a screaming April O'Neil, her high-pitched wails echoing back and forth on the metal walls.

Krang crawled back into his body, laying limp and useless on the floor, and began to regain control of it again. Bebop watched him, scratching his head with one hand and gripping Splinter with the other. "Krang, do ya's know what this new Shredder wants?"

"To kill all the turtles, you moron!" Krang replied, smirking as his body began to work again. "He said so at least five times." He stood on his feet, striding over to the monitor, watching the burning building intently. The flames rose higher.

"Will he get to Turtle Prime?" Even Bebop knew that could lead to the destruction of the Multi-verse.

Krang replied, "I doubt it. He acts just like our Shredder, so I bet he's got no more brains than him as well. I wouldn't be surprised if he died trying to find the turtles in this flaming building, the idiot. If he does get too far, I'll take care of him."

"Yeah, but if da Shredder does get to Turtle Prime, me and Rocksteady cans just save the universe again" - he snorted, tugging Splinter closer - "Like we did last time, right Krang?"

"The odds of that happening are a million to one. This _new_ Shredder may not be too smart, but he won't be as empty-headed as that ridiculous Utrom." Krang frowned as he watched the flames grow higher, wondering if anyone would come out soon. Part of the roof caved in with a thundering crash. There was a shrill scream, from somewhere high up.

April O'Neil in the Technodrome shouted again, her scream almost identical to the one in the building. Her annoying shout finally caused Krang to snap. He turned around and shouted, "Will you just_ shut up _already?"

* * *

Shredder12 walked into another room of the Technodrome, the steel door sliding shut quickly after he entered. The man walked across the room, forcing himself to stand tall and not limp because of his wounded leg, his feet clanking on the metal floors and reverberating on the walls. He reached the odd machines on the other end of the room. They were cylindrical transports with small wheels and huge drills on the front. Shredder turned to Rocksteady, walking up behind him, hoping the rhino would explain what exactly these were.

Rocksteady smiled as he caught sight of the machines. "Oh, the modules! We use these to gets up to the surface all the time, to blast those toitles!"

Shredder nodded in understanding. He stepped into one and ordered Rocksteady into the next and the Foot Soldier robots into the last. It took Shredder a moment to analyze the controls, but the Foot Soldiers' module took off quickly, just a blur, followed soon after by Rocksteady's. Both machines squeezed into two large tubes attached to the wall and out of the Technodrome. Shredder12 followed as quickly as he could, cursing at Rocksteady for leaving him behind.

For a good few minutes, all Rocksteady could see when he peered out of the module window was dirt. Dirt, dirt, dirt. "Dis part of the ride is never any fun," he complained like a child. He looked down at the old cracked computer screen, seeing that the Foot Soldiers were nearly a mile ahead of him. Being robots, they had no care for the dangers of going too fast. Rocksteady leaned down hard on the steering wheel, cranking up his speed. Soon enough, he broke the surface. Suddenly, fire licked the outer walls of the module, growing stronger, hotter, and brighter, with the constant sounds of wood crackling. Rocksteady was in the burning building, breaking through floors.

He travelled for a few seconds more, when suddenly - "YOU MORON!"

Rocksteady's hands flew off the controls and he screamed, looking around for the speaker. He finally caught sight of Shredder12's angry face on his screen. "Oh, hi boss!" Shredder must have gained enough understanding of the controls already to find out how to communicate between modules.

Shredder narrowed his eyes, and Rocksteady tried hard to not look at the scorched left side of the man's face and the horrid yellowed eye. "You're going to suffer consequences for deserting me," said Shredder, scary and mad. The screen blackened before Rocksteady could even reply.

"Gee, I've gotta make the boss happy again," Rocksteady said. He never had to work this hard for Shredder87, but now it was Shredder12 in control, and Rocksteady followed who ever had the power, no matter how loyal he'd once been to Shredder87. The rhino only wished he had Bebop with him, as they were hardly ever apart.

"Time to take out some toitles," snorted Rocksteady, pulling out his machine gun and wrapping his hands around the handle, around the worn spot they'd been placed so many times.

Finally, Shredder12's module broke the surface. The pixellated flames took up all of his window, reflecting off of the Shredder's silver armor, moving and flickering, bright and terrifying.

These flames reminded the Shredder all too much of the fire that had happened fifteen years ago, the one that had killed Tang Shen and left him with a hideous burn across half his face. Shredder had only been trying to destroy Hamato Yoshi by burning his house, but his act had been rash and stupid, leading to the death of the only woman he had ever loved. _It's all Hamato Yoshi's fault,_ Shredder thought, refusing to accept the truth. He had blamed Yoshi fifteen years ago, as well, and had taken Hamato Yoshi's daughter as revenge, raising her to hate her own father.

No better revenge besides death.

* * *

**I hope you liked this chapter! :)**

**I couldn't resist putting the 1989 arcade game turtle dimension into this story. I just love that game so much. I may not be very good (I'm not good at video games in general) but on the rare occasions I get the chance to play it at the only close arcade that has it, I fill that old machine full of quarters. I believe the game has had a significant affect on many other turtle iterations, especially on the video games that came after it, so I feel like in a story dedicated to TMNT's 30th anniversary, this video game has the right to have a presence in it. And it's just so fun. **

**After this, the story is going to get really intense! Lots more action and lots more turtles! **


	8. Chapter 8: The Beginning of the End

**Just a reminder: the arcade game turtles will be referred to as Donatello89, Leonardo89, and so on.**

**This entire chapter is action, action, action. Enjoy! :D**

* * *

-1989 arcade dimension-

Donatello89 thrust his bo staff forward, catching the Foot Soldier in the chest. He gritted his teeth with the effort of flipping the robot over his head and crashing it into another Foot Soldier coming up behind him. He stood over the destroyed robots, trying to catch his breath as he gazed at the fire spreading towards him, closing him in. Within a second, Donatello was, out of nowhere, attacked by another Foot Soldier. He held up his bo, his arms shaking as the robot bared down.

Donatello backed up and fell down onto his shell, kicking his feet forward and sending the Foot Soldier flying into the wall, where he exploded in a burst of red sparks and gray smoke, leaving a pile of smoldering robot parts and purple cloth on the floor. The purple-masked turtle didn't get back up for a moment, catching his breath. He'd taken a lot of blows already and felt near passing out. The fire surged up the walls all around him and Donatello knew he'd have to get up and run from it soon, but he just lay there, breathing hard.

A few yards away, Leonardo89 struggled as a group of Foot Soldiers pressed him to the wall, some clawing at his face, a few pulling out their guns. Even from so far away, Donatello89 could see the sweat rolling down his brother's face, the unbrearable heat and exhaustion slowing him down. Leonardo held his swords in an X position crossing each other, trying to force the robots back. His face an expression of forced determination.

There was the mechanical, unmistakable, sound of a ray gun firing and the red bolt of light, its color blending and melding to the fire behind it, shot straight towards Leonardo's head. Donatello89 didn't even have time to shout out, but he closed his eyes.

What Donatello89 didn't see was Leonardo89 thrusting his arm upward, groaning with the effort of lifting the many Foot Soldiers gripped tight around his muscles. The red bolt struck the sword and was absorbed into the metal. Raphael89 ran forward out of the blue and sliced the ends of all of the Foot Soldiers' ray blasters, disabling them. He turned around to see only Leonardo89's face visible under the pile of robots trying to smother him, and he and Michelangelo dashed forward and began to help pull the Foot Soldiers away. The flames were so close now that some of the Foot Soldiers' clothes were beginning to catch fire.

Donatello89 stood, feeling sticky with sweat due to the heat. The flames swirled like an insane koleidoscope around him and he coughed on the smoke. "Guys, we have to keep moving! We're here to rescue April!"

Leonardo89 shoved the last Foot Soldier off of himself with help from Raphael, sending it stumbling to the ground. Michelangelo hit it a few times with his nunchucks to make sure it was down before running down the stairs behind his brothers, the flames chasing at his heels. "Dudes, where did these Foot Soldiers come from?"

No one bothered answering Michelangelo, because no one knew the answer. But as all four brothers stumbled onto the next floor, they saw the robots dispersed down the entire hallway.

"We don't have time to fight them all," said Raphael hopelessly.

"We just have to make it past them," Leonardo replied, doing his best to stand tall. He looked into the crowd of robots, and then to the fire that bit at the walls and ran down the floor. He held up his swords, and let all his worries wash away, before running head on down the hallway. "Turtle power!"

Donatello89 just stood there, mouth hanging open. "He's nuts! We're all near defeated. No way we can make it through this!" He gestured at the seemingly endless hall of robots and at Leonardo thrashing with his swords at any who came close, looking almost like he'd regained all of his energy.

"Got any better ideas?" Raphael scoffed, before running into the crowd as Michelangelo shouted "Cowabunga!" at the top of his lungs and followed. Donatello swallowed and then ran into the crowd as well, his vision clouded by smoke and his power near gone, knowing this was a risky thing to be doing.

But they all fought with honor.

* * *

Donatello07 stepped out of the portal to find himself on a floor of a burning building. He was shocked, standing stock still, but he saw out of the corner of his eye as Leonardo03 came up next to him. They glanced at eachother, and then at the smoldering drapes dangling on the wall that clattered down to the floor as the fire ate up the fabric. The rest of of the turtles walked out of the portal, jaws dropping. They stood in a tight group in the middle of the room, daring not go near the flames.

Michelangelo96 swore, hands over his head and eyes wide. He turned around and shook Raphael87 by the shoulders. "Dude, why in the world did you pick _this_ dimension to go to? _It's on fire!"_

Raphael87 pulled Michelangelo96's hands off of his shoulders and held up his hands in a defensive position. "Dude, don't you see?" Raphael87 said,"This dimension looks like an awesome video game! All pixelated! Who _wouldn't_ want to be in a video game? I just didn't know we'd come out of the portal in a burning building! Don't get so hot-headed!"

"Hot-headed!" Donatello07 said, letting loose a nervous chuckle as he watched the flames. His voice was high and frightened. "That's a good one! Got any _more_ jokes?"

"As a matter-of-fact, I do!" Raphael87 retorted, leaning in close to Donatello07's face. "Wanna hear 'em, brainiac?"

"_Guys_!" Leonardo13 yelled out. "Shut up! You can all fight later. Right now, let's get out!"

"Leonardo is correct," said Splinter C, "We must focus on what is more important." He took the wrists of the two closest turtles, Raphael90 and Donatello87, rushing towards them towards the exit stairs with Leonardo13. Most of the turtles followed, racing down the steps in a mad dash for the exit, hoping whatever floor they were on was close to the lobby. A few started to prop open the window and climb onto the fire escape, but Michelangelo87 just stayed where he was, the portal swirling shut behind him. He stayed as still as a statue.

The orange-masked turtle stared at the flight of stairs that lead to the higher floors, wondering if he was only imagining the voices he heard. None of the other turtles had mentioned hearing desperate shouts and ragged coughs, but Michelangelo87 was sure they were real. He just stood there, in the middle of the hallway, staring up at the stairs. He felt the flames pressed tight against him, closing in.

"_MICHELANGELO!" _Leonardo87 pleaded, begging his brother to move. "Come on!" He watched as the fire came closer to his brother, causing sweat to dribble down Michelangelo87's face.

Donatello13 rushed forward and tried to pull Michelangelo87 towards the fire escape, but Michelangelo87 shook free of his grasp. "Someone needs our _help_!" He turned and ran straight up the stairs and out of view.

With all the noise, some of the turtles that had ran down the stairs came up to see what was going on. Leonardo87 explained that Michelangelo87 had run away and was surprised that none of the turtles shouted out "Just leave him behind!", because he knew some of the turtles in this ragtag group didn't like Michelangelo87 much. Leonardo87 guessed to some extent they all cared about each other.

"Well what are we waiting for?" Leonardo96 shouted, almost in disgust. "No turtle left behind!" He ran up the stairs after Michelangelo87, and his brothers followed him almost immediately, like there was no other option. All of the other turtles watched in shock as those they had presumed as the wimpiest turtles risk their lives for someone they had only just met. And almost as if Leonardo96 had grabbed them and forced them up the stairs, they followed. Without a second thought.

"This," Splinter C said between wheezes and coughs as they rushed up the stairs,"Is a team. I only hope we can maintain it."

* * *

Michelangelo89 pressed a Foot Soldier against the wall and Raphael89 and Donatello89 helped him hold it there. Leonardo89 shouted out and stabbed his sword through the robot's chest, splitting the circuitry. The Foot Soldier slumped to the ground and the turtles rushed back as flames overcame its body. They turned and Donatello caught another with his bo staff and threw it at the wall.

Michelangelo was weak and Raphael was near unconscious, and Donatello89 and Leonardo89 were carrying the brunt of the battle, even as exhausted and sweltering they were. They had to protect their brothers. The pixelated flames swirled around them.

Leonardo split two more Foot Soldiers apart with his swords, while Donatello89 rushed forward to the next flight of stairs leading downward, with April's shrieks that split the night telling them they were close to wherever she was. As Leonardo89 pushed down the last Foot Soldier, he leaned over and let Raphael89 slump against his shoulder. He half-carried him down the stairs. Michelangelo89 coughed hard on the smoke, leaning against the wall for a break until Donatello forced him to keep moving. The flames raced down the walls behind them, almost as if their only goal was to burn the turtles to the ground and not the building.

"Leonardo," Raphael89 gasped. Leonardo89 turned, seeing Raphael89 smile weakly. Leonardo89 supposed Raphael was about to say some joke to lighten the mood but the red-masked turtle couldn't manage another word and just closed his eyes. His feet stopped moving and Leonardo lifted him up in his arms. He didn't let himself think about whether Raphael was okay, because he first had to focus on surviving this battle.

The floor of April's apartment was left free of Foot Soldiers and the turtles made a mad dash towards her door. Donatello89 thrust it open, running in. There was April, pressed against a table and staring transfixed at the flames.

"April!" Donatello89 said,"Stay calm. We'll get you through this." He approached her, but before he could reach her, the ground shook like an earthquake and everyone but April fell to the ground. She screamed as the drill emerged from her floor, spinning in a blur. What followed the massive drill was a compartment on wheels. A metal door slid open, revealing who was inside.

Rocksteady. He smiled, his gray wrinkly face never so unsightly. He stepped forward, aiming his machine gun and pulling his army hat tighter over his scrawny gray ears. "Say your prayers, toitles." He let loose on his gun and the bullets shot around the room.

Leonardo89 dodged the flying random bullets, rushing forward and striking at Rocksteady. The mutant kicked him back and Leonardo crashed into the wall. Donatello89 shouted out as a bullet soared for his face and sucked his head into his shell, popping it back out when the danger was gone. He turned to see Raphael89 slumped on the floor, his eyes flickering as he fought to stay awake. Michelangelo89 was fighting with all he had left in him, which wasn't much.

"We're in for," Donatello89 said. The fire rose higher, growing stronger.

"At least we'll go down fighting!" Michelangelo89 replied, hitting Rocksteady repeatedly with his nunchucks. The mutant rhino swatted at him.

"You stupid toitle!"

Donatello89 rushed forward towards April to lead her towards safety, but suddenly Rocksteady turned and fired at them. Donatello screamed, not knowing if the bullet would hit him or April. He leapt in front of her, his shell facing the direction of the bullet.

The bullet did not hit Donatello's shell like he had planned it to. Instead it struck the back of his forearm. Donatello89 screamed in agony, gripping his hand tight around the wound, feeling the metal lodged deep into his skin.

"Donatello! No!" Leonardo89 shouted, realizing his brother was hurt. He wished he could reverse time and push Donatello and April out of the bullet's way, or if their wasn't enough time he would take the bullet instead. Anything but see his brother writhing on the ground. Now it was just Leonardo and Michelangelo fighting, and Rocksteady wasn't even hurt.

The rhino sneered as looked at Donatello89, overcome with pain. "Eat lead!" He fired again, but this time Leonardo89 had enough notice to run in front of the bullets and pull Donatello and April to safety. But now he was cornered against the wall by Rocksteady, with Raphael watching helplessly across the room and Michelangelo weakly beating his nunchucks against the rhino.

"You idiot, Rocksteady!" Raphael89 shouted, his voice hoarse. "Is this the best you can do?" He laughed, showing that the stress and pain had finally gotten to him. This was all near a dream to him and he probably thought he had already been knocked out. Probably hoping he was.

Leonardo89 looked straight down the barrel of Rocksteady's gun aimed at him, and then to April and Donatello pinned against the wall with him. "Turtles fight with honor, we die with honor...But hopefully not today."

Donatello89 nodded, gulping, letting April hide behind him. "Everything will be all right," he assured her, wishing with all he had he wasn't lying. He focused on the barrel of that gun, and it helped him take his mind off the pain searing in his arm, like the fire had gotten inside of him and was tearing him apart.

* * *

"There!" Michelangelo87 pointing out the only open apartment door to the turtles beside him. They had caught up to him and were just as ready to save whoever needed help as he was.

Donatello07 and all the others screamed out once again, feeling like their arms were on fire like a gunshot had hit them. None of them had actually gotten hurt, so they assumed it was the Donatello of this dimension they hadn't met yet that had gotten injured and they were all feeling his pain. The Raphaels coughed on the smoke, feeling drowsy.

"Cowabunga!" Michelangelo87 yelled, leaping through the doorway. The first thing he made out in the scorched room was Rocksteady, so he flew towards him without a thought, tripping him down. Bullets rattled out of the gun in the rhino's hands, shooting straight towards the ceiling.

"More toitles!" Rocksteady shouted out.

"No, we're giraffes," Raphael96 said sarcastically, he and his dimensional brothers snickered to it like it was an inside joke. Donatello90 looked at them like they were crazy.

"Eat lead, toitles!" the rhino shouted, groping for his gun. Raphael90 kicked him and Casey Jones C hit him rather hard with a hockey stick. Mikey C made faces at Rocksteady and hit him with his nunchucks over and over, being as annoying as he could.

"Take that you mad elephant freak!" Casey Jones swung the hockey stick again.

Donatello87 ran forward and helped Raphael89 to his feet, while Leonardo90 lead Donatello89, Leonardo89, and April89 outside of the apartment room and towards the fire escape, but the two turtles refused to run from the fight, as confused and weak as they were. April sputtered, puzzled by the sudden appearance of so many more turtles.

Donatello87 caught sight of the wound bleeding of Donatello89's arm. "You need help. Let me take care of that injury."

"Later." Donatello89 ran back towards the apartment room with Leonardo89.

Rocksteady kicked an attacking Raphael13 away from him, which finally left him able to stand up. He pushed himself to his feet and readjusted his army hat. "You toitles are going to pay!" He charged through a crowd of turtles, pointing his sharp horn out in front of him. The turtles dodged and Rocksteady finally reached his gun again. But before he could even turn around, Leo C leapt on his back and tried to pry the machine gun away from him.

Rocksteady growled in irritation and slammed his back against the wall so hard that Leo C's shell left a dent in the it. As soon as Rocksteady walked away and Leo C fell to the ground, fire rushed over at spread across the dent, finding its way towards the floor. Leo C had to stand up and run away. The fighting space was getting smaller and smaller, and the room was getting hotter and hotter.

Rocksteady turned to see Donatello89 trying to examine the wound on his arm. "_Aww_, did I hurt you?" he said,"Here, let me make it better!" He aimed his gun and fired, but not before Raphael87 charged into him, messing up his shot so it hit the wall instead and Rocksteady fell to the floor. Raphael87 came and stood over him. "You bozo, Rocksteady. Shooting him again won't make him better. Geez, who writes your dialogue?" He chuckled to himself but no one else laughed. Rocksteady shoved Raphael87 away and stood up again.

Michelangelo07 leapt and tumbled around Rocksteady, constantly bombarding him with kicks and nunchuck hits, and Michelangelo87 and Michelangelo03 did their best to help. Splinter C was trying to give Donatello89 help with his injured arm, but the turtle was stubbornly refusing, wanting nothing more to get back in the fight.

Finally, Rocksteady growled and aimed his gun at Donatello13 and Michelangelo90, and they didn't have time to dodge or even shout as the bullet soared towards them. They were pressed against the wall, surrounding by fire with no immediate place to run.

At the last second, a blurry form leapt in front of the bullet, shouting "NO!" The bullet hit it and the form slumped to the ground, and Donatello13 and Michelangelo90 looked down to see it was Leonardo87 lying on the floor. He looked dead for a moment, still as a statue, until his eyes fluttered open. "Ugh..now that's what I call shell-shocked."

"Dude, are you okay?" Michelangelo90 said, helping Leonardo87 to his feet.

"Yeah, the bullet just ricocheted off my shell," Leonardo87 replied like it was nothing. He in turned helped Donatello13 and Michelangelo90 escape the flames surrounding them.

"Why'd you do that?" Donatello13 asked. "That bullet could have seriously hurt you if it missed your shell. You hardly even know us but you risked your life to save us."

Leonardo87 smiled knowingly. "Of course I know you. You're my brother Donatello." He then pulled both of his swords back out and ran towards Rocksteady, swinging his swords against the rhino in a skilled and swift movement. Michelangelo90 and Donatello13 shared a glance with each other, not knowing what to think of what Leonardo87 had done. But they were definitely glad he'd done it.

Finally, Donnie C pinned Rocksteady against the floor with Raphael03, and they had just about knocked him out when suddenly the ground shook again, like an earthquake. A shelf toppled over, like a wall of flames, right into the middle of the room. Leo C quickly pulled Michelangelo96 away from the shelf a second before it landed, saving him.

A second drill shoved Rocksteady's module out of the hole it was lodged in and a second module replaced it. The door slipped open and out strode Shredder12. The turtles gasped, looking around for a way to escape. Raphael89, weak and near unconscious, was across the room, head dolled back and eyes barely open.

"Shredder!" shouted a voice, high and feminine. The turtles turned to see April O'Neil standing in the doorway, mouth wide open.

"April!" Leonardo89 shouted, desperate. "Get out of here! Use the fire escape!"

But before April could even move, Shredder leapt forward, soaring over the flames spread across the ground. He grabbed her around the waist and headed back towards the window. Michelangelo03 shouted out in anger and fought the menace away from the window, but Shredder grabbed him with his free arm and chucked him at the flaming wall.

As soon as Michelangelo03 landed, he screamed and scrambled away, feeling the flames press tight against his skin. He hunkered down a few feet away and caught his breath, his mind and heart racing. Leonardo90 quickly pulled off Michelangelo03's mask and stomped out the flames scorching the ends.

Shredder12 pried open the window, April O'Neil slung over his shoulder shouting and punching. "Come towards me again and the woman dies!" he said, pointing out the window to the mind-bending drop of twenty-three stories. Down there were Foot Soldiers guarding the building's entrance, keeping fire fighters and police out. Shredder sneered as the turtles hesitated, staying back to protect April. He turned to look at Donatello89. "Where is the Splinter of this dimension?" He didn't shout but that didn't make him any less scarier.

"You think I'd tell you?" Donatello89 said, clenching his fists tight around his bo staff. He gritted his teeth as he felt blood trickling down his arm.

Suddenly, there was an enormous crash and part of the floor caved in, slamming into the floor below. Rocksteady jumped to safety as the ground crumbled underneath him and Leonardo13 barely made it, clutching the edge and pulling himself up.

Shredder felt fear rise up inside him, staring at the gaping hole in the floor and the flames racing towards him. He didn't show his fear, instead putting on a brave face. "Goodbye, turtles!" He leapt out of the window, grabbing edges on the way down to slow his descent. April screamed, fighting for freedom.

Raphael89 gasped, struggling to his feet like it was the hardest thing he'd ever done. He ran with his brothers and they jumped straight out the window as well, following Shredder. The night was cold, a stark contrast to the oven temperatures of the burning apartment, and it was so dark the crowd on the street didn't see them. The moon was a huge white circle, its light outlining the turtles in white as they skillfully rushed down the side of the building after Shredder.

The rest of the turtles in the apartment followed the 1989 turtles, nothing left for them in the decimated building. They fell for a distance, before gripping an edge of the wall jutting out, holding on only long enough to leap to the next foothold. Shredder was twenty feet below them, and the 1989 turtles were approaching him fast.

"Shredder!" Leonardo89 shouted, "Let April free!" The turtle probably hadn't even noticed that this wasn't the Shredder of his dimension and didn't have time to question the tons of turtles that had been helping him. His only mission was to save April.

"Bad choice of words, Leonardo," Shredder said. He dropped April and she soared towards the ground, her hair whipping at her face as she screamed, splitting the night.

"NO! _APRIL!" _Donatello13 blurted out. He unfurled his hand from the edge and free-fell towards her, making himself aerodynamic to catch up with her. He fired up his Gravity Gauntlet, and caught a ledge only two floors from the hard concrete. He aimed the Gravity Gauntlet at her quickly. There was a mechanical sound and she suddenly rose, the air tearing and screaming underneath her, protesting this impossiblity of her rising so freely. Escaping the pull of gravity.

Donatello13 turned off the Gravity Gauntlet when she was a few feet above him, letting her catch the ledge he was on. He looked at her and she looked at him, her hair a complete mess and her eyes wide. This may not have been the April that Donatello13 knew so well but he still thought she was beautiful like the April he had a crush on back in his home dimension.

"Thank you, Donatello," April said, arching her eyebrows, still confused about all these new turtles. Donatello13 told her there wasn't time to explain. He helped her to the ground and then rushed up the side of the building again to fight the Shredder with all the others.

"You lost your leverage over us when you let go of April!" Leonardo87 shouted,"There's nothing you can keep us back with now!"

"I'm not afraid of you cretins!" Shredder blasted.

Casey Jones dropped, shouting a muffled battle cry as he flew towards Shredder, swinging his hockey stick. The vigilante missed Shredder and quickly grabbed a ledge again, dangling just a few stories above the ground. Shredder moved along the ledge he was gripping twenty stories up and Casey shouted, "Yeah, you better run!"

Rocksteady finally climbed out of the apartment window, clumsily making his way down the side. He used one hand to hold his machine gun, firing madly. The turtles barely managed to dodge.

Leonardo13 growled, scaling the side of the building in mere seconds. He was right next to Rocksteady, and rhino shrank back from the turtle's bright, angry white eyes. Leonardo13 hung from the windowsill and punched Rocksteady, pulling the machine gun away. Suddenly, Rocksteady shouted "Ooh, you're not beatin' me that easy, toitle!" He pried his machine gun out of Leonardo13's grasp and shot it straight at him. Leonardo13's eyes widened; he flipped backwards off the windowsill, Rocksteady's gunshots barely missing him as he soared through the black sky in a graceful backflip. The turtle caught a ledge, staring up at Donatello90 trying to protect a few turtles as Rocksteady mercilessly shot at them. Leonardo13 felt useless, unable to disarm Rocksteady.

"Fight me, turtles!" Shredder shouted. Leonardo13 watched him, trying to catch his breath, and noticed the way Shredder12 stumbled slightly when he used his left leg. He was injured, weakened.

"If you say so, Shredder!" Michelangelo07 called. He dropped two stories to be next to Shredder. He punched, but Shredder dodged. They couldn't seem to make a hit on each other, one attacking and the other moving away in a blur. But as Shredder was distracted by Michelangelo07, Raphael96 and Donatello89 snuck up from behind. Shredder turned his head just in time to see them, and he suddenly grabbed Michelangelo07 and chucked him straight at Donatello89.

Donatello89 screamed as Michelangelo07 flew straight into him, flinging him off of the ledge he was gripping. They fell for quite a distance, entangled, until Donatello89 finally caught on a windowsill, gritting his teeth from the pain of using his injured arm. He held out his bo staff and Michelangelo07 caught the very end of it, dangling twenty feet above the ground. The crowd below screamed and pointed, finally taking notice of the fight on the side of the burning building. April was filming it all with a video camera, grinning. "What a story!"

Raphael96 was still right next to Shredder. He didn't pull out a weapon, because he didn't have one. He kicked, but Shredder effortlessly grabbed his leg, and then threw his fist right into the metal clasp that went around Raphael96's shoulder, denting the red R initial. Shredder continued to attack Raphael96, until Michelangelo13 and Donnie C leapt in to help. Donnie C pulled his bo staff over Shredder's neck and tried to choke him. Bullets split the night from Rocksteady's machine gun, but Michelangelo96 was up there, doing his best to avert the shots away from any turtles.

As a huge crowd of turtles tried to pry Raphael96 free of Shredder, Leo C, Leonardo03, and Leonardo87 gathered a few yards away on the building's corner. Leonardo03 tried hard not to think about high up he was, as he was a little afraid of heights. Leonardo87 said,"We've got to do something!"

"Good idea, _brilliant_ leader," Leo C retorted. He looked down at the huge mob of turtles fighting Shredder. "I say we attack from below. Ambush Shredder. He won't know what's coming."

"Sounds good," Leonardo03 said, nodding. "Just one question. Which of us Leonardos is the leader? There are seven of us here, you know. I feel we would be doing much better if there was someone directing our fights. I nominate myself, because - "

"We'll deal with that later, all right?" Leo C interrupted, waving the question away. Without another word, he began to crawl down the side of the building that was facing the crowd down below, avoiding the view of Shredder or trigger-happy Rocksteady. The other two Leonardos followed him, silently drawing their swords. They blended into the night like they were shadows themselves.

Shredder shouted out, grabbing Mikey C by the back of the neck and slamming him into the brick building. Mikey C groaned and slumped forward, falling, until Donatello87 caught him. He looked down to see the orange-masked turtle, unconscious in his arms, marked with bruises and cuts all over. Obvious signs that he had fought hard and proudly before he'd been knocked out.

Raphael89 dropped down suddenly, screaming Cowabunga so ferociously that it became something else entirely, something as meaningful as someone's last words. Raphael89 was weak, he'd been barely awake moments ago, but he couldn't stand seeing these turtles hurt, even if he didn't know them or how they got here. So he slammed hard, straight into the metal armor plating Shredder's chest, knocking the metal-covered menace looser and looser from the ledge with each punch and kick.

Shredder now was only holding onto the ledge by one hand. There was a big explosion inside the fiery building, sending flames shooting straight out of a few windows. The building shook. And as Shredder was attacked so recklessly by Raphael89, he didn't notice the three Leonardos sneaking up behind him.

Leonardo03 hacked outwards with his katana, getting the edge of Shredder's foot. The metal-covered menace screamed and kicked Leonardo03. The impact of the kick, straight into Leonardo03's plastron, slammed him down. He fell and Leo C caught him, barely, and pulled him back onto a windowsill. Leonardo03 hung on tight, watching as everything inside that apartment building burn. Splinter C came over and asked if he was okay, and it was obvious the rat truly cared about Leonardo03.

Michelangelo03 had thought his brother Leonardo03 was going to fall straight to the ground, and even after Leo C had caught Leonardo03, Michelangelo03's heart was still beating fast. He looked at Shredder in a new light, and this fight became personal. While Leonardo03 wasn't hurt, there was still that fear. Michelangelo03 had known Leonardo03 his whole life, they were the strongest of brothers, and so Michelangelo03 had finally had enough with this fight. He leapt off the edge he'd been clutching, swinging his nunchucks. "Hey, Shredhead!"

He hit him hard after soaring two stories down the building. As soon as he landed, Michelangelo03 pulled the extremely weakened Raphael89 off of Shredder and the orange-masked turtle began to punch. He didn't stop, and his knuckles began to leave a dent in Shredder's helmet. "This" - he slammed his fist at the armor - "is" - another punch - "for_ Leo_!"

The last punch was strong, with more energy than Michelangelo03 thought he had left in him, and Shredder's hand uncurled from the ledge he had been so strongly gripping. Rocksteady, far above, screamed "Boss, no!" and more gunshots split the night. As Shredder12 fell, almost in slow-motion as the crowd below pointed and April filmed, Raphael90 dragged himself up the side of the building, a bullet grazing his skin, and he chucked Rocksteady's gun as far as he could.

The Foot Soldier robots on the ground, who had been previously occupied with keeping firefighters out of the burning building, ran towards Shredder as he fell, as if they thought they could catch him. A couple of robots ran to a parked module and drove at top-speed down through the hole it'd made upon arrival at the surface, disappearing down the tunnel.

It seemed like it took Shredder forever to fall, and so many things happened during his descent. Raphael89 finally succumbed to the unconsciousness he'd been fighting, and slumped right off of the wall with no one near enough to catch him. There was another explosion inside the burning building, knocking all the turtles, Splinter C, and Casey Jones clinging to the side off balance.

After all of that action, Shredder finally landed. He fell straight down the hole the Foot Soldiers' module had made, shouting out in pain as he tumbled through the tunnel, his screams echoing into the night. And Raphael89 landed right in an open Dumpster, softening his impact. Everyone stared in shock, doing nothing as Rocksteady bumbled down the side of the building and followed Shredder down the tunnel. Nothing happened for several minutes, but April below continued to film. There was a loud noise inside like more floors were collapsing. It was too late for the fire-fighters to go inside, but they did their best to stem the fire from the outside.

Finally, Leonardo13 blinking, coming back into awareness. He looked at all the injured turtles around him, the very building he was on falling apart, Mikey C knocked out, Raphael89 unconscious down below, and the two villains disappeared. "This is horrible!" So many had risked their lives in the fight and barely any progress had been made to stopping Shredder. Everyone began to descend down the building, slipping into the shadows the ally provided them on the ground.

"Yeah," Donatello87 said,"What good came out of a lousy fight like this?" He looked to Donatello89, his arm still bleeding, and they both shared the pain. Everyone felt pain, even if not necessarily everyone had gotten hurt. But they did their best to fight through it. Leonardo90 went over and pulled Raphael89 out of the Dumpster, hoisting him over his shoulder.

"Shredder and Rocksteady both escaped," Donnie C said, "I noticed Shredder fell down the same tunnel the robots used for their odd drill transportation machine. My guess is Shredder and his followers have something hidden down that tunnel. My guess is that whatever is down there has the ability to jump through dimensions, explaining how Shredder is getting around. We could go down the tunnel after them, but who knows if Shredder would even still be there? What if he's already gone to another dimension?" The rest of the Donatellos nodded, agreeing with Donnie C's logic.

"Well, this all may be a horrible turn of events," Raphael87 said, trying to lighten the mood, "But at least it makes for a heck of a cliffhanger!"

* * *

-2012 dimension-

Karai watched the progress bar on the monitor inch up to fifty percent. She was almost there, the Kraang had almost analyzed the origin of the 2012 turtles' source DNA. She would find Turtle Prime and decimate it. She could imagine herself now, destroying all turtle life like Shredder had been trying to do for so long now.

She wondered if her father would be proud.

She looked up at the tiny corner of the Kraang's monitor, still displaying video of what Shredder12 was up to even if the Kraang didn't have much use for him anymore. He had just slid out of a deep tunnel, and now was in a cave of some sort, limping towards what looked like a giant golf ball on wheels. A ramp slid out for him to climb and a giant warthog mutant keeping a tight grip on Splinter waved to him happily. This all looked very odd.

_My dad has the weirdest job_, Karai thought to herself.

* * *

**I really wanted to fit more of the story into this chapter, but it was pretty full with just this one fight. So some stuff that was going to be in this chapter is going to overflow into the next. This fight is pretty important to the story and I did my best to write it and make it as exciting as possible, so compressing it down to fit more stuff in the chapter wasn't something I wanted to do. Oh, and did you notice this chapter, all the way until they climb out of the building to fight, parallels the first level of the TMNT 1989 arcade game, just with more dimensions of turtles added in. I thought this chapter was fun to write that way. :D**

** So did you like this chapter? Reviews are very much appreciated. In fact, extremely appreciated. _Hint_,_ hint_. **

**Expect a big turn of events next chapter. Something you've all been waiting for!**

**And now, I will discuss the 1987 TMNT cartoon. It's really an amazing cartoon, and is what TMNT has to thank for its humongous popularity. This cartoon lasted ten years, holding the record for longest running cartoon until the Simpsons beat it in 1998. If that's not a sign of success, I don't know what is. Sure, this cartoon can be really corny and goofy, but in the best episodes I can't stop laughing. While the 2003 show focused mainly on action, and the 2012 cartoon blends humor and amazing fighting, I'd have to say the 1987 cartoon is the funniest of all of the TMNT shows. It definitely has a few problems, but nothing's perfect. And because of the huge influence the first TMNT cartoon had on the franchise, it deserves to be one of the iterations of turtles in this story dedicated to a successful 30 years of TMNT. The original cartoon has influenced my life, and so many other peoples'. Turtle Power!**


	9. Chapter 9: For Better or For Worse

-**1989 arcade dimension**-

All of the turtles stood still, watching April O'Neil's apartment building burn and crumble, sending a huge cloud of smoke floating up in the sky. It was a solemn, sad moment for all of the turtles, huddled in an alley away from the view of the public. Raphael89 and Mikey C were unconscious, strung around Leonardo90 and Donatello87, respectively. Among the large group, there were numerous cuts and burns and injuries. But no one said anything as they watched that building fall apart, burning like the hope they'd had of defeating Shredder. They outnumbered him by so much, but yet that Shredder was so strong and so motivated, he could take them on even with a wounded leg.

The 1989 turtles stared at the holes in the concrete, made by the Foot Soldiers when they got away in the module, and then Shredder and Rocksteady. They couldn't bear to watch the apartment burn, or look up to see April O'Neil still stubbornly filming the destruction of her own home, or the huge crowd screaming and the firefighters failing at putting the flames out.

Finally, Donatello89 looked up from the module's hole and mumbled something. "We should follow them, Shredder and Rocksteady."

Leonardo90 adjusted Raphael89, who was strung around his shoulders. "Are you crazy? Even with our numbers, we can't defeat him. If we go after him, I garauntee someone is going to get more than knocked out. Plus, we need to take care of our injuries."

"Do you want to save the multi-verse or not?" Donnie C said, taking Donatello89's side.

"We need reinforcements," Leonardo90 said, scowling. "We need to find more turtles and get them to join us, before Shredder gets to them first and destroys them. I'm betting Shredder isn't even down that hole anymore. He's in another dimension somewhere already."

Donatello89 didn't bother to listen anymore. He began to walk towards the hole in the ground, determined to prove Leonardo90 wrong. Donnie C followed slowly, and soon more turtles hesitantly came after them, too. Splinter C sighed, seeing that the team was falling into disarray again.

Gradually, all of the turtles followed Donatello89, some telling him and his group to get away from the hole, for there was nothing they could do if Shredder _was_ down there. Michelangelo07 tried to wrestle the Inter-dimensional Portal Stick away from Michelanglo87, trying to open another portal so they could go after Shredder, who was probably already gone from this dimension.

* * *

Down in the Technodrome, Shredder12 had just barely stumbled into the control room, followed by Rocksteady. Krang turned around and gargled,"You're back! I see your no better than the Shredder I know! Can't even finish off four measly turtles!"

"There were more than four," Shredder growled. He went straight up to the control panel and shoved a lever forward, not caring what it did. He needed to get out of this dimension before the humongous group of turtles followed him.

"No, you metal-covered moron!" Krang shouted, flailing his arms. "That's not the the way to open a portal! It makes the Technodro - " The alien didn't finish his sentence, as a sudden strong jolt sent him tumbling down the the floor. The Technodrome was surging forward, rumbling under the Earth's crust. _"Imbucile! _I'm surrounding by pure idiots!"

"You disgusting slug!" Shredder12 shouted,"You dare insult the _Shredder_?" He kicked Krang out of his robotic body and sent him tumbling across the shaking floor. Shredder12 then bared down harder on the lever, now angrier than he'd been in years. Nearly defeated by the turtles and then downright insulted by a whiny alien.

Over in the corner, Shredder87 was finally coming to, groaning and struggling to his feet and walking over to the monitor. "Krang definitely dares insult_ the _Shredder. He calls me an idiot all the time! And really, after all I've done for him - "

Shredder12 flipped around and grabbed Shredder87 by the front of his cape, pulling the shorter man off of his feet to be at eye-level. His eyes were menacing, full of untold horrors, making it hard for Shredder87 to hold his gaze. Shredder, under the metal mask, smirked as he saw Shredder87 recoil slightly at the sight of his grotesque burnt face.

"You are not the _Shredder_," Shredder12 said in a gravelly voice,"And you will never be. A coward such as you does not deserve the title."

He dropped Shredder87, and ignoring April O'Neil's constant screams, Splinter's struggle for freedom from Bebop's iron grip, and Shredder87 and Krang throwing meaningless insults, Shredder12 shoved the lever forward as far as it could go, doubling the Technodrome's speed.

* * *

Donatello89 finally reached the hole the module had made, and soon enough most of the turtles were surrounding him. A limp-looking Leonardo87 stood at his right, and Donatello96 was struggling to see around Raphael03's tall shoulder. Everyone, bathed in the soft light of the moon, seemed to be waiting for Donatello89 to go down the hole. After all, this had been his idea.

Donatello89 gulped, and he leaned forward to peer down the tunnel. He had to go down there, because he wouldn't let April's home be shattered without punishing the man who did it and the multi-verse depended on defeating Shredder. The module tunnel, a perfect circle was carved through the rocks and dirt, was steep and eventually the tunnel became so shadowed it was impossible to peer any farther down. Leonardo87 took a step closer, beginning to slowly step into the crevice, turning to the group and saying,"Follow me, let's go have a look around down there."

But as Leonardo87 took another step, adjusting his feet in the crude footholds made by jutting rocks, the world suddenly jolted forward. It all happened in a fraction of a second, as the burning husk of the apartment buiding tumbled to the ground - with people running and screaming in all directions - Leonardo87 stumbled and fell down the hole. Donatello89 quickly leapt forward, holding out his hand for the turtle to grab, but Leonardo missed his fingers by mere centimeters, shouting out in fear as he rolled down the steep tunnel and out of sight.

In a fraction of a second, Michelangelo87, Donatello87, and Raphael87 shoved their way to the front of the crowd and slid down the tunnel on their shells, in a mad rush to rescue their brother. Before he slid down with his brothers, Donatello87 passed an unconscious Raphael89 over to Donatello07 to hold. "I'm coming, Leonardo!"

And everyone followed after them, without hesitation, because, even though some of the turtles had never wanted to travel down the tunnel, there was no turtle left behind. Ever.

* * *

-**1984 dimension**- (Turtle Prime)

Michelangelo Prime was feeling dizzy and seeing spots, like he'd gotten hit too hard over the head and was nearly unconscious. Raphael Prime also had a similar feeling, and Donatello Prime felt like he'd gotten shot in the arm but there was no sign of an injury. Over the hours, Leonardo Prime had felt several quick bursts of pain, but not much more.

And now they sat in Donatello's lab, contemplating what was going on, as Donatello rushed to find an explanation for the strange pains, grimacing as he used his stinging right arm. He was flipping through three science textbooks all at once, muttering curse words as no answers showed themselves in those dusty pages. A recently used set of beakers, a centrifuge, a relic of a computer, and a microscope lay on his table.

Whatever was going on, all the turtles felt it was going to lead to something big, and they had to be ready for it.

* * *

-**1989 dimension-**

Leonardo87 closed his eyes as he fell down the tunnel. A frightening feeling of weightlessness overtook him as he free-fell, occasionally hitting against the wall of the tunnel painfully. There was no use opening his eyes, only to see the pitch black world that surrounded him and the seemingly endless shaft.

He finally hit the wall of the tunnel one last time and was surprised, opening his eyes, to see that he was now tumbling out of the shaft. As he rolled, groaning from the painful bruises forming on his skin, he caught glimpses of an enormous sphere of metal slats, as well as a nice view of the huge arching cave in which it sat. Once he had stopped rolling, Leonardo87 gingerly began to sit up, marvelling at his new surroundings. While the huge stalactites and stalagmites, as well as the small lava pit nearby, were awe-stricking, what surprised Leonardo87 the most was the huge circular metal machine. It looked like it was made with thousands of random pieces of metal welded together, stuck on wheels way too small and branded with the FOOT clan logo, and to top it all off a giant steel blue eye on top.

"The _Technodrome_?" If Leonardo87 had been expecting anything to be down here, never in his wildest dreams had he imagined it being the Technodrome of the 1987 dimension. How had Shredder12 gained control of it?

When Leonardo87 had last seen the Technodrome, it had been drastically changed by Utrom Shredder. Though now, the Technodrome looked to be halfway between the old machine Leonardo so vividly remembered and Ch'rells Utrom version, like Shredder87 had been trying to bring it back to how it had always been. There was a still a huge red laser in the middle of the sphere - put there by Utrom Shredder - but Leonardo87 doubted that Shredder87 would ever take it out.

Leonardo87 stood up and, limping a little, began to step towards the giant vehicle. He finally noticed it was moving, ever so slowly, shaking the ground like a moving earthquake.

* * *

Shredder12 looked up from the controls of the Technodrome to see the monitor, as it was flashing and making a lot of noise. On the screen, a little blue-masked turtle stood on the rocky ground, staring up at the Technodrome, no doubt. A red blinking circle surrounding the turtle, as if the Technodrome was telling Shredder12 to fire at him.

Before Shredder12 could even react, Shredder87 shouted with pure joy,"Oh! Oh! It's that blasted turtle Leonardo! Destroy him, destroy him!" He made a mad dash for the control panel, giddy like a child getting a new toy, his eyes dancing with the opportunity to crush his opponent with every single weapon in his arsenal. Shredder12 turned around quickly and pressed his hand firmly to Shredder87's forehead, easily holding him back, but Shredder87 still struggled towards the controls and shouted various insults. Shredder12 couldn't let this Oroku Saki burn out the Technodrome's weapon supply, and Shredder12 felt that only he should have the honor of annihilating the turtles.

Smiling wickedly, Shredder pressed a single button on the control panel, glad he was the one destroying this turtle and not the unworthy Shredder87.

The red circle began to blink wildly, and the little turtle onscreen, looking so very helpless, stared wide-eyed as the large shadow of a missile flew over him.

* * *

The explosive missile, six-feet long and metal with a blue eye like the one atop the Technodrome, blasted towards Leonardo87, a chain of smoke trailing behind it like a dragon's breath. He began to run, but he was slow from the sore injuries all over his body. In no time, it was closing in on him.

Suddenly, with the wild shout of "Cowabunga, dude!" a blurry figure of green and orange flew out of the module tunnel, followed closely by two others. They slammed at high-speed straight at Leonardo87, hitting him and sending him soaring twenty feet away. He sprawled out on the ground, catching his breath as the missile hit the place he'd just been. There was a huge burst of red and orange, like a fireworks display, and nothing was left afterwards but a smoking crater.

Michelangelo87 was right next to Leonardo87, rolling off of his shell onto a sitting position. He smiled ectastically. "Dude, you owe us, like, a ga-zillioin pizzas. Extra cheese! Without us, that crater would have been you, bud!" He helped Leonardo87 to his feet and they watched as the rest of the turtles slid down the tunnel on their shells, crashing into each other and shouting. Casey Jones C and Splinter C came out last.

* * *

Shredder12 slammed his fists against the control panel as the missile completely missed Leonardo and instead hit the cave wall. And then he growled angrily as more and more turtles piled into the cave. There were too many now.

"Look at all of those shellbacks!" Krang shouted, his purple eyes widening. "Get us out of here! If four turtles can take down the Technodrome, imagine what thirty - _no forty _- can do to it!" He turned and walked towards Shredder12, who was still forcing a kill-crazy Shredder87 away from the controls. "I won't have you destroy _my_ Technodrome, Shredder! I won't have it!"

"Do not order me around," Shredder12 said,"But I will get us out of here." He pressed the button that opened a portal and quickly drove the Techodrome through it without a second's hesitation. The monitor displayed a huge crowd of turtles, a vigilante, and a rat, pointing up and yelling, chasing after the vehicle, but after the Technodrome squeezed through the portal it shut instantly.

"Mondo bizarro!" Michelangelo87 exclaimed, his happy expression dropping as the portal disappeared, along with the Technodrome. "How did that maniac Tin-grin get the Technodrome?"

"Who knows how?" Leo C said. "But we've got to follow them. Did anyone see what dimension it went into?"

Within the entire group, there was one simultaneous shrug. Donatello13 stepped forward and said,"That crazy machine blocked out the portal completely, like how the sun is blocked out during an eclipse. And I can't believe how those wheels that are so small in porportion to the Technodrome, can even get that thing to move, no less at that speed -"

Raphael03 pretended to be covering his ears. "There's no need to remind us how smart ya are, brainiac!"

"Yeah, just go back to shouting '_Time for a staff meeting' _over and over," Donatello87 said, snickering. "It's really quite a clever catchphrase." He struggled to keep a straight face.

Leonardo90 set an unconscious Mikey C gently on the ground and cleared his throat. Even though the group had erupted into a turmoil of angry voices trying to beat each other out, everyone stopped shouting once they heard Leonardo90. The blue-masked turtle was such a perfect and experienced leader, so he knew how to get his brothers to listen to him. He was a large presence in the group even if he didn't talk much, as he usually had something smart to say, so everyone always listened to him. And as that huge crowd of turtles looked up at him, Leonardo90 spoke, his words filled with energy.

"We should have no problem taking care of this Shredder. He is one man and we are an enormous collection of brothers. I really think we can do this, but what we must focus on is uniting ourselves as a team. We are in complete chaos right now. Nothing we do against Shredder will work unless we fight like a team, like we are united as one."

Splinter C smiled. At least one turtle knew how to fix this team. Behind him, a few of the turtles exchanged nervous glances, slightly guilty for so harshly mistreating each other.

"So, how do ya suggest you fix this team,_ fearless_?" Raphael03 said, folding his arms and scowling. He added jokily,"I say we get rid of the useless turtles, like those guys." He pointed in the general direction of the 1996 anime turtles, who instantly snapped back at him with furious insults and folded their arms in contempt, clearly not taking that as a joke.

Leonardo13 suddenly spoke out, getting back on subject. "We need a leader." A lot of the Leonardos nodded in full agreement, adding their comments about who should lead. All of the Leonardos nominated themselves, except for Leo C, who looked angry.

"Not this again!" he groaned. He turned to Michelangelo87 and commanded him to open a portal. "We're wasting time. We can find a leader some other time, but now we need to catch Shredder." The rest of the Leonardos glared mutinously at Leo C, like he'd dishonored them.

Raphael87 chuckled at the angry Leonardos and said to Leo C sarcastically,"_Come on_, Leo, get your priorities straight! Leader first, then the multi-verse!" Raphael89 was the first to walk through the portal that Michelangelo projected against the cave wall, but the other turtles first examined the dimension they were about to enter. They had a nice view of a city street, completely empty of cars and people. The dark buildings were outlined with moonlight from the full, blue-ish moon in the night sky.

"This is New York?" Michelangelo07 said, scratching his head. "Where are all the people?" He relunctantly stepped through the portal, giggling at the strange feeling he'd never get used to as the portal swallowed him up. He was followed closely by Donatello07, clutching his bo staff nervously. Slowly, more of the huge group went through, staring up at the big full moon as they stepped through the image of the dimension.

But instead of walking through the portal, Michelangelo03 didn't move. He stared dumbfounded at the vast city of New York sprawling out before him, his eyes wide. A flash of recognition crossed his face and he turned to the few turtles remaining in the cave and shouted,"I've seen this dimension! It's the one where Shredder came from!"

"How do you know, bro?" asked Michelangelo87.

"Remember when we were fighting Shredder in my dimension and I tried to send Shredder back to where he came from with the Portal Stick? This is the dimension I saw; this is where he's from, I'm sure, dude!"

Donatello13, also one of the last turtles remaining in the cave, looked up at the shimmering portal with a new appreciation. "Hmm...This could be extremely important. Something big happened in this dimension that alerted Shredder of the multi-verse and allowed him the ability to travel through dimensions. I'd say there's something distinctly different about this place compared to the other worlds."

"Totally, dude," said Michelangelo87, rolling his eyes. "But if you don't hurry up, compadre, I'm leaving you behind here!" With that, he dashed through the portal with the rest of the turtles.

* * *

-**2012 dimension**-

Michelangelo87, the last through the portal, looked around to see the huge group of turtles standing around on an empty street. There was no sign of people anywhere, but they were still being cautious and quiet. Each turtle, along with Casey Jones and Splinter C, was taking their turn dropping into the sewers from an open manhole.

Michelangelo87 closed the portal, his eyes wandering around the city, amazed at every new sight. Even from so low on the ground, surrounded by tall buildings, he could see the skyscraping monument in the distance. It was a shiny silver building, it's top made of two sharp pointy spikes. The building looked futuristic and out-of-place, with the letters TCRI stretching down the side. Michelangelo87 didn't know what TCRI meant, but he didn't give it much thought, and the giant building left his mind the second he dropped into the sewers and lost it in his view.

Leonardo90, still carrying Mikey C - who was now starting to awaken - lead the way down the tunnels, followed directly by every other Leonardo. The blue-masked turtles walked quickly, struggling to keep up with tall Leonardo90's huge strides, as they wanted to be in front, leading the group because. It was so natural to them to lead.

Donatello87 took the still unconscious Raphael89 back from Donatello07 and hefted him gently over his shoulder. He looked around at the pitch black that surrounded him like the dead of night, nervous and suspicious, and said,"Guys? I think the Lair of this dimension is that way." He pointed to the right side of a fork in the tunnels that they were approaching.

"I think so, too," Leonardo90 called back. "It just feels like the right way to go, like I've always known where this dimension's Lair was."

Splinter smiled. "I've a feeling the multi-verse is heavily connected, and if you search deeply enough, you always know the right way to go and the right thing to do, because the dimensions are not as different as you'd like to believe."

"Wow, deep," Michelangelo07 said. He then turned to Donatello07 and asked,"Now, what did it mean?"

Up ahead, Leonardo87 suddenly passed Leonardo90 to become the leader of the group. He thrust forward his katana in a heroic manner and shouted,"Let's go, turtles! We're the only hope the multi-verse has!"

Raphael87 chuckled and again turned to the wall and said,"Don't you wish you could deliver lines like that with a straight face?"

Most of the turtles ignored Raphael87's random quip, rushing forward to get to the Lair, but Donnie C came over to Raphael87 and asked,"Hey, why do you always talk to the wall so much?"

"It's not just any wall, it's the fourth wall!" Raphael87 said as Donnie C pulled him along to keep up with the group.

* * *

In the Lair, Donatello12 had his feet propped up on his lab table table, leaning back in his chair. He could see his confused and panicked expression so clearly in the black screen of his computer. And he could see that same expression so closely reflected in the faces of his brothers, strung around the lab with him. April and Casey were there too, but they were afraid to speak, afraid of hearing more of the terrible thing Karai had done to the turtles only a couple hours ago.

Leonardo12 hadn't spoken since they had gotten back to the Lair, escaping Karai and her mad scheme by sheer luck. Leonardo felt like his whole body was numb, and he was so confused. His spirit was broken, for now.

Raphael had been angry - at Karai, at being humilated, at being hurt, and who knew whatever else - and had made sure everone knew when they returned to the Lair. Now he sat in the corner, glaring at the wall as if it had insulted him, surrounded by the bits and pieces of a small device of Donatello's he'd torn apart. Every once in a while, he'd ask Donnie what Karai had done, but the purple-masked turtle still had no answers. The blood samples he'd taken, the experiments he'd done, they'd all come up short. They explained nothing about what Karai had done to them in TCRI, why she had strapped them to that machine.

But all of the turtles had the very same feeling. Emptiness. Like something had been stolen from them.

* * *

The huge group of turtles soon reached the end of a sewer tunnel and instantly knew they were in the turtles' Lair. What else could it be? There was an old TV sitting in a lowered part of the floor, an arcade machine, a pinball game, a kitchen and some other rooms, as well as a small pool of water over in the corner. The whole place was considerably dark, so the turtles were careful as they spanned out across the room, looking for any sign of the turtles.

"This place definitely looks like a fixer-upper," Donatello03 noted, looking around at the rather drab Lair. He remembered his Lair back home and this one was nothing compared to it.

"Do you think they're on patrol?" Michelangelo03 asked once the group confirmed this dimension's turtles weren't in this part of the Lair.

Suddenly, as Raphael90 was about to say something, there was a loud, booming crash. Everyone looked to see that it had come from an odd garage door near the turnpike entrance. Soon after the explosion, a strict voice shouted,"Mikey! How many times do we have to tell you not to play with Donnie's stuff?"

"One more time, I guess," replied someone, who was probably Michelangelo.

The large group of turtles immediately rushed to the garage door, and once there stared at it as if it was as interesting as a portal to a new dimension. They wondered what these turtles looked like and whether they would help defeat Shredder (he was _their _Shredder, after all) but no one volunteered to open the garage door. Finally, Donatello96 was pushed up to the it. He knocked first, then said "Hello?" in a quivering voice.

The same voice that had scolded Michelangelo inside the room spoke again. "Who could that be? Everyone is in here, and Splinter's in the dojo meditating!"

Donatello87 and Leonardo87 pulled Donatello96 out of the way and propped open the garage door. As they walked in, the turtles of this dimension eyes widened and their mouths dropped open. Michelangelo12 backed against the wall and shouted,"It's the return of the dork turtles!"

"Dork turtles?" Michelangelo87 said, coming up behind his brothers. "Dude, harsh!" Raphael87 came in next, and whispered to Michelangelo87. "The _return _of the dork turtles? He's seen us before?"

Leonardo87 turned around and whispered to the rest of the huge group to stay behind in the main part of the Lair, because it would be best to slowly introduce the 2012 turtles to avoid confusing them. But the rest of the group peeked into the room, staring at these new turtles, who looked so different.

Donatello12 was tall and skinny, with huge brown eyes and a purple mask slung around them. It was easy to tell from his gaping mouth that he had a gap tooth. Leonardo12 was the second-tallest, holding himself proudly and sturdily even now, looking at the 1987 turtles with his obsevant blue eyes. He looked like a competent leader and Leonardo87 took an instant liking to him. Raphael12 was short and obviously had a bad temper, sitting alone in the corner of the room among the dispersed pieces of a broken machine. Michelangelo12, leaned over the counter (and also over a black burn on the surface, likely the result of the recent explosion), staring intensely. He had freckles, and short bobbing mask ends. Also in the room were Casey Jones and April O'Neil. Casey was skinny, wearing dark clothes and a bandana over his jet black hair. His face was painted like a skull, and it was noticable that he had several teeth missing. April O'Neil was red-headed and sported a yellow jersey, her huge blue eyes narrowed at these new turtles suspiciously. She looked liked she wanted to say something - in fact, all of the 2012 characters did - but for now they didn't speak. Just stared.

Donatello87 felt the tension in the room and tried to loosen it up. He looked around at all of the stuff in the room - plenty of scientific tools, a computer, science posters on the wall, some algae pools, small inventions, and a few vehicles, including a huge one that looked like a graffitied subway car. Letting loose a low, impressed whistle, Donatello87 said,"Nice lab. I have one at home, but it's much more crowded. I've always wanted something a bit roomier, like this." Still, there was silence, so Donatello87 resorted himself to staring at the tank in the corner, that looked oddly like a frozen collection of organs. He tried not to think too much about whatever the thing was.

Raphael87 said to Michelangelo87,"Ah, the strong and silent type." Michelangelo87 struggled not to laugh out loud.

Finally, something broke the heavy awkwardness that had enveloped the room. Donatello12 rose slowly from his chair, struggling to comprehend what was going on. "I know these turtles. I've seen you all before..."

"On Channel Six news?" Michelangelo87 said,"I swear, that station practically survives off of 'exclusive coverage' of us, dude. Can't I ever eat my pizza without April cramming a video camera in my face?"

Leonardo87 turned around and hissed,"_Michelangelo. _Now is not the time for jokes. This is serious." He turned back to the 2012 turtles and composed himself again. "Sorry about that. Donatello, where have you seen my brothers and I before?"

"In the dimensional gateway," Donatello12 said solemnly. He walked forward, feeling his way around the table as he still wouldn't take his eyes of the 1987 turtles. "In the place the Kraang use to travel between worlds. We saw your dimension there."

"Krang?" Donatello87 said. "Dimensional gateway? What do you mean?"

Leonardo87 hesitated. "We can talk about this later. It's obviously important but" - he looked up to Leonardo12 - "we have a rather large group with us. Some need medical attention. Plus, we haven't rested in over a day. Later, I can explain what's going on and you can tell me about this dimensional gateway and Krang's exploits."

"Yeah, I'm starving. Do you dudes have any pizza?" Raphael87 interrupted.

Donatello12 backed away in surprise and nearly tripped over his chair. Michelangelo12's eyes widened, staring at Raphael87 like he was an alien. "_Donnie_?" he called out in a scared voice. "What's going on? That dork turtle sounds just like you!"

"Dork?" Raphael87, hands on his hips. "We resemble that remark!"

"Dude, that joke's not funny the second time," Michelangelo87 drawled.

Leonardo12 walked towards the group and looked down at Leonardo87, and he instantly knew they'd get along great. "I'll help you and these other turtles you mentioned, and we'll tell you about the Kraang, but in turn you have to explain _everything_ that is going on. Deal?"

"Deal." The two turtles shook on it, smiling, and then the 1987 turtles they lead the 2012 turtles out into the Lair to meet everyone else.

* * *

**Thank you for so patiently waiting for this chapter. I'm sorry it took such a lengthy amount of time to complete it. **

**This is the first chapter I have published in the month of May 2014, I believe, and I would like to not that this is the month TMNT turns 30 years old. This is a huge milestone worthy of celebration. TMNT is one of my favorite things. Nearly every iteration has that charm that makes the story of the turtles so fun, and I don't know what it is about TMNT that makes me like it so much. Is it the fact that every iteration is so drastically different but still recognizable as TMNT, or that this is one of few franchises that connects each iteration in a multi-verse, the martial arts, the characters, or just the plain wit and great storytelling? I think that all of those contributes to the great genius that is TMNT. You can't deny this is one of the most original franchises to ever come about, and has far surpassed any early expectations of its success. Even years from now, maybe when there are no more TMNT stories to tell in movies, TV, video games, or comics, TMNT will still live on, because no doubt there will be many life-long loyal fans. And that is why I am proud to be a shell-head. **

**As Michelangelo would say,"It's been a Cowabunga ride, dudes!" And I look forward to the next thirty years, and the many more that come after them. **

**Look forward to the next chapter! **


End file.
